The Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC) have hit out at a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes in conjunction with the National Bureau of Statistics which places the Judiciary as one of the highest collectors of Bribes.
Recall that the report stated that a whopping N400bn was spent on bribes in Buhari’s first year and that the biggest culprits were the Police, Prosecutors, and the Judiciary.
The NJC have picked on the lists saying that it is speculative in nature and not a true reflection on the state of things.
This was communicated in a statement by its Director of Information, Mr. Soji Oye, on Sunday where they accepted that they did have some bad eggs but that the number of bribe takers put forward (1,059 federal and state judges and an estimated 4,000 magistrates) have not been arrested or charged and therefore could not be deemed guilty.
It said; “The judiciary finds the conclusion of the organisations not only subjective but speculative. There is no denial of the fact that there are a few bad eggs in the judiciary, like in every other arm of government; at the same time, there are many honest and hardworking judicial officers and magistrates making the judiciary and the country proud.
“The question that should agitate the minds of the people is the criteria used by the UNODC and the NBS to measure the level of bribe-taking in the Judiciary to grade it as the second largest receiver of bribe.
“For instance, what is the percentage of judges caught receiving bribe out of a total number of 1,059 judges in both the federal and state judiciaries?
“What is the percentage of magistrates caught taking bribe from an estimated total number of 4,000 in the country?
How many judges or magistrates have been arrested and/or prosecuted and convicted of corruption till date to deduce such conclusions?
“One then wonders the criteria used by the organisations to arrive at the conclusion.”
It continued; “The Judiciary calls on the general public to disregard the aforestated allegation as it is untrue, baseless, unfounded and a figment of the agencies’ imagination.
“The National Judicial Council as usual calls on members of the public to forward written petitions against any judicial officer found soliciting or receiving bribe or otherwise engaging in conducts unbecoming of a judicial officer to the National Judicial Council for appropriate action.”
“It should be noted that the Judiciary is the only arm of government that has been investigating its judicial officers and dealt appropriately with those found guilty by dismissal or removal from office, subject to approval for such recommendation from the President or the governor of a state as the case may be, and publish such in electronic and print media for the consumption of the public.”