by Mark Amaza

Today, one of the most high-profile corruption cases in Nigeria came to an end, and in quite an anti-climax – Senate President Bukola Saraki was acquitted by the Code of Conduct Tribunal and all 18 charges ranging from false declaration of assets to operating foreign bank accounts as a public officer, brought against him by the Federal Government were dismissed.

The trial which started in September 2015 had generated a lot of media firestorm, which is not unexpected considering the fact that it involved the Number Three citizen in the country. It was also supposed to be an example of how under the anti-corruption fight of President Muhammadu Buhari, there were no sacred cows.

Although there are strong beliefs that the case was politically motivated by the way Saraki usurped the zoning arrangement for principal officers for the National Assembly and what some see as his being overly ambitious, a political witch-hunt claim cannot suffice as a defence to a crime accusation.

However, it has ended in a defeat for the Federal Government, and in a most embarrassing way too. Saraki’s defense did not even bother to address the allegations – all they did was to make a no-case submission, which means that the prosecution had failed to prove their case. After all, in law, the burden of proof is on the accuser.

What does this say about the anti-corruption drive of the Buhari administration?

First, it proves in many ways the lack of diligent investigation into allegations against accused persons, particularly in high-profile cases. As many commentators have noted, there seems to be a rush to arresting and starting prosecutions, often to present the appearance of an anti-corruption drive that is working.

Saraki’s case is not the only case where the defence simply made a no-case submission – it was also the same scenario in the case of Justice Adeniyi Ademola, which was enough to get him acquitted after being accused of corruption and illegal firearms possession. It is common knowledge in legal circles that for a no-case submission to be made, it means that the defense team has a high degree of confidence that the prosecution has done a very poor job.

Secondly, this reminds Nigerians that despite all the noise over high-profile arrests and prosecutions, there is hardly yet to be any conviction gotten. Although many of these cases are still ongoing (and quite speedily relative to previous cases, I might add, thanks to the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015), there have been a few acquittals as well such as those of Justice Ademola and Raymond Omatseye, former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had earlier been convicted by a High Court before it was overturned by the Court of Appeal.

There is need for all anti-corruption agencies – the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Code of Conduct Bureau – and the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation to come together and re-evaluate the strategy they have been using.

Inasmuch as there is a lot of political capital to be gained for the administration by getting high-profile convictions on corruption cases, there is far more political capital to lose if cases are continuously bungled due to how they are shoddily prosecuted.

Editor