Court seeks law to ban accused persons on trial seeking for office......

Justice Bukola Banjoko of the FCT High Court, Abuja on Wednesday called for a law to ban anyone standing trial from holding public office or contesting elections.


Banjoko, who made the call at the ongoing annual conference on Financial Fraud, Cyber Crime and Cross-border Crimes, said this would deter others from committing crimes.

According to her, anyone standing trial should not be allowed to continue in office or aspire to hold public office until the determination of the substantive trial and appeals.

She said: “This will ensure the absence of delay tactics and aid effective disposition of the case.

“I had someone who is a high profile person, he is facing heavy charges.

“In the meantime, he left being a governor and despite all the charges, I am not saying he is guilty because it has not been proved, he was re-elected as a senator.

“This deals with the Nigerian psyche that crime pays.

“So we have to do away with this.”

Olufunmi Fatunde, a former Director of Public Prosecution in the Ministry of Justice, stressed the need for “suggestion” to be included in the constitution.

Fatunde said including it in the constitution would greatly reduce the strain in fighting corruption.

She said there would be a lot of resistance to this kind of suggestion but stated that if all stakeholders were resolute and determined it could be achieved.

Linus Okeke in his presentation on combating corporate, public and institutional financial fraud and abuse in Africa, stressed the need for investigations to be concluded before arrests were made.

Okeke said if investigations were concluded before arrest, there would be no need to keep amending charges and the trial would go on smoothly.

Okeke, who is from the private sector, also stressed the need for companies and chief executives of companies involved in fraud to be barred from tendering for jobs.

He said: “You notice that if a company is closed because of fraud, the chief executive can just open another company and continue from there.

“So they should be stopped.”

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the conference, which is organised by the Ministry of Justice in collaboration with Digital Forensics Limited, opened on Tuesday and will end on Thursday.