SERAP: 55 politicians, high-level public officials stole N1.3trn in seven years

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) says N1.354 trillion was stolen from the nation’s coffers by “55 politicians and high-level public officials” between 2006 and 2013.

SERAP said this on Wednesday in Lagos while unveiling its report titled ‘Letting the big fish swim’.

The organisation said the amount of money “embezzled, misappropriated or stolen by public officials and leaders in the private sector between 2013 and 2017 has galloped beyond the contemplation of average Nigerians”.

It said, “evidence abound that judges, judicial officers, lawyers and military officers are participants in the frenzy of despoliation of national wealth”.

The organisation said part of its discoveries is that those accused of high-level corruption are “getting away with their crimes and profiting from Nigeria’s legacy of impunity”.

In the report obtained by TheCable, SERAP said although the nation’s anti-corruption agencies handled more than 1,500 non-high profile corruption cases between 2000-2017, they could only secure ten of such cases

“Out of the 10, only three convictions were obtained after full trial while seven convictions were based on plea bargaining,” the report read in part.

“Most corruption cases against high profile defendants witness delays tactics and tricks by defendants to truncate fair trial. The cases depict the stark reality of a captive justice system at the mercy of high profile offenders and their platoon of defence counsel.

“The negligible number of conviction of high profile defendants explains the probable calculus of offenders that the risk of apprehension and conviction is low. The record of proceedings from courts and law reports paint a vivid and irrefutable picture of the causes of truncation of prosecution of high profile in Nigeria.

“The trajectory of cases through investigation to trial and appeals qualitatively reveals strong evidence of a nexus between weak institutional capacity on the one hand and attitudes of actors in the criminal justice sector that hamstring orderly and efficient collation and presentation of evidence in court, which militates against impartial determination of corruption cases.

“The sense of simmering undercurrent of commodification of justice and commercialised legal contortions and reasoning pervades investigation, prosecution and trial of high profile corruption cases in Nigeria.

“Justice stands in the dock this game of musical chairs presided by technical justice while high profile offenders gleefully sit in comfort with their loot, fortified by the efficacy of a vast array of subterfuge and jiggery-pokery of their lawyers, with seeming active and passive connivance of actors in the legal community.”