Looters should be barred from running for office, says supreme court judge

Kumai Bayang Aka’ahs, a supreme court justice, says treasury looters should be barred from running for office for some years. 

He also advocated the use of plea-bargain in the fight against corruption, saying it will help the country’s economy.

Speaking at the annual lecture of the International Dispute Resolution Institute on Saturday, Aka’ahs said the approach will save the country a lot of money.

“I think in the long run, instead of having people behind bars, it will help our economy if they will return what they have stolen and we can tell them, go and sin no more,” he said.

“Those embezzling funds to run for office, if they are found out and barred for some years it will serve as a deterrent. We should be more informed about plea-bargain. We need better understanding of the plea-bargain.”

Lindsay Jones, a professor of Emory university, Atlanta Georgia, US, said there should be research programmes aimed at developing multi-alternatives to a law which will transform the law curriculum taught in Nigerian universities to re-think the requirement of justice.

He noted that it was important for the judicial system to be restorative and not retributive.

“We believe that our present justice system that is built on retributive justice can be humanised or completely changed,” Jones said.

“Our aim is to invent new models that concentrate on restorative justice and non-custodial sentencing as the means for positively rehabilitating the perpetrators of crime.”