A serving minister in Chinese government was beheaded for stealing a few coins. On the 20th of January, 2013, an Abeokuta magistrate court convicted Adesina Mustapha, aged 49 at the ita- ika area of Abeokuta to 2 years imprisonment for stealing vegetable worth 5,000 naira and 10,000 naira was given as option of fine, that is, 100% of the value of vegetable stolen. Now every lawyer upon graduation from law school is placed on oath; to discharge his/her functions judiciously and judicially. John Yusuf stole 23.3 billion naira and sentenced to 2 years imprisonment with 750,000 naira as option of fine.
For an individual who spends 100,000 naira every day, then it will take him 80 years to spend 1 billion. Then for 23.3 billion, you can work that out. Perhaps he needs to live longer than the biblical methuselah. We are also conscious of the fact that a whole lot of persons who have served our dear nation diligently without being paid their gratuities/entitlements, let alone their pensions. Some even die in the pursuit of this entitlements, in other words, the refusal of john Yusuf to pay these persons their pension has been instrumental to these deaths. Others become destitute as the case may be.in other word, murder of these retirees must be included as a count charge for john and his cronies.
James Ibori was discharged and acquitted by a judge in Nigeria but he was found guilty of the same offence in London where he is currently serving his jail term. The judge who presided over this matter, discharged and acquitted Ibori is still moving about in Nigeria free and without remorse of any sort whatsoever. Sadly enough, the entire world is watching. Watching Nigeria where the rich maneuver the law with impunity.in other words, encouraging other assistant directors and public servants to keep stealing since the penalties for such offence is not punitive to act as a deterrent to future and intending offenders. The world is watching Nigeria in a shameless display of arrant porosity in our judicial system. The entire world see Nigeria as a most unserious minded nation where anything goes holding herself down with cyclical poverty unleashed by the rich against the defenseless poor.
Sequel to the out-cry of Nigerians, the EFCC decided to re-arrest john Yusuf and re-arraign him of fresh charges which include; non declaration of assets and operating a fixed deposit account worth n250 million naira. Some questions quickly come to mind: why did the EFCC not charge john Yusuf with these offences originally? Is it that the EFCC suddenly got to know about these fresh charges following the outcry of the masses? Who is indeed fooling who? The Nigerian nation is a whole lot of tragedy. But we must fix it, irrespective of the number of john Yusuf’s and the shameless judge, we remain resolute to correcting these seemingly unending war against corruption.
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DR NWAMBU GABRIEL
DIRECTOR GENERAL, GLOBAL CENTRE FOR CONSCIOUS LIVING AGAINST CORRUPTION (GLOCCOLAC).
07069768921.
