Barely 48 hours after the Department of State Services, DSS, had taken
seven suspected corrupt judges into its custody, details of what led to
their arrests and how they were picked up from their homes by
operatives
of the agency began to emerge last night. Competent sources close to
the operations told Vanguard that the agency could no longer watch and
allow corrupt judges use their positions to engage in sabotage,
subversion and espionage latching on huge proceeds of corruption.
A
source said that unknown to most Nigerians, some of the judges had been
collecting huge bribes to subvert the will of the people, using the
proceeds to acquire choice property and build fat bank accounts without
putting in enough efforts to do the job they were paid to do. The source
said that
based on series of petitions from concerned Nigerians to
checkmate the excesses of the corrupt judges, the DSS moved in and began
a covert investigation, which finally led to the establishment of prima
facie evidence against them.
As we speak now, we have
incontrovertible evidence of brazen corruption against the seven judges
in our custody and we are ready to charge them to court, even tomorrow.
‘’By our own analysis, the rot in the political scene – election
rigging, inter and intra-party crises and election petition trial from
tribunal to Supreme Court – gave rise to the deep corruption in the
judiciary.
In the economic sphere, Nigeria lost cases to foreign
investors due to the collusion of judges with foreigners, leading to the
loss of hundreds of billions of Naira by the country, among them, the
Malabo Oil deal where the country lost over $2 billion. “We have the
mandate not only to pre-empt and prevent but also to take necessary
actions to bring the culprits of economic and financial crimes to book.
That
is why we are challenging those who think that our action is
unconstitutional to take us to court since we cannot allow Nigeria’s
security interest to be jeopardised. “Let it be known that anybody whose
action can create hardship for the rest of Nigerians must be stopped by
us before the crime is committed and there is no other agency that is
as capable of doing that as the DSS,’’ the source said.
It was
learned that the DSS had an easy access to the bank accounts of the
detained judges and actually established that they had been taking
bribes from many sources in the discharge of their duties but used the
names and pictures of their wives, children and siblings to open such
banks account, which were not known to most of those whose names
appeared in the bank ledgers.
When we brought in most of the
children, wives and relatives of the suspects based on the papers we got
from the banks, they did not even have an idea that their names had
been used by the judges to open such accounts. “But you see under the
Bank Verification Number, you must put in your passports, name,
signature and others.
So, for some of the judges, who used fake
names and their wives names to open the accounts into which they paid in
the proceeds of crime, they foolishly appended their signatures or used
their pictures, something that gave them out. “From what we have found
out, some of the suspects acted foolishly in committing the offence
because they cannot prove that even if their children were to earn N1
million monthly since they were born till date, none of them can
accumulate the amount of money we have traced to their accounts and the
type of property they have.
Look, it may interest you to know
that one of the two Supreme Court judges in our custody has a property
worth N1.5 billion in one of the South-South states. If we may ask,
where did he get the money to set up such project?” “As far as we are
concerned, there is nothing unusual in arresting corrupt judges and
taking them to court because it would be an offence against the nation
to continue to turn a blind eye to mounting corruption in the judiciary.
The
official also pointed out that another judge, who is being detained and
questioned, disguised as a shopper in one of the supermarkets and ended
up collecting bribes in Dollars from a ‘client’ only to be caught on
CCTV camera. The official expressed regret that the National Judicial
Council, NJC, which had the responsibility to track and punish corrupt
judges, had tended to condone evil being perpetrated by the corrupt
elements, citing the cases of three indicted judges as example.
The
NJC, having been satisfied that the three judges demanded and collected
heavy bribes, merely recommended the retirement of the one who took a
bribe of N200 million and asked him to be paying back in bits to the
complainant. So, we ask, what happens to the proceeds of crimes? No
answer was given until we stepped in.
Similarly, the two other
judges were retired with full benefits, smiled away. Since then, the NJC
has not been cooperating with us and we cannot allow the rot to
continue in the interest of Nigeria. Turning to the appearance of
Governor Nyesom Wike at the scene of the arrest of a suspected corrupt
judge of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, the official noted
with concern the action of the governor, wondering what he went to do at
that time of the night, if he was not part of the judge’s deal.
It
was the governor, who blocked the DSS operatives from seizing the $2
million crime proceeds, which the judge had made from the PDP crisis
stoked by a faction backed by the governor. “But for the our highly
professional operatives and service direction, we would have beaten up
Wike that night so that he would have explanations to make on why he
went to a crime scene at odd hours and aided a suspect to move $2
million crime proceeds to an unknown location.
But we already
have an idea of where the money was moved to and we are going to
retrieve it and bring the judge to trial. As a matter of fact, we are
going to treat the Port Harcourt FHC judge case as a ‘special case’,
given his collusion with the governor to obstruct our work. “The
behaviour of the judge has worsened his case. In the last three months,
the judge has been going across the Nigerian borders with other
countries collecting bribes for himself and others.
The source
also indicated that the judges might be allowed to go home as soon as
they answered the questions put to them by the operatives, adding that
they were being given royal treatment, in view of their status and the
need to give them a conducive atmosphere to speak up. The seven judges
arrested and currently in detention at the SSS office are Justice Inyang
Okoro and Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court; Adeniyi Ademola of the
Federal High Court, Abuja; Kabir Auta of the Kano High Court; Muazu
Pindiga of Gombe High Court, Mohammed Tsamiya of the Court of Appeal in
Ilorin, and the Chief Judge of Enugu State, I. A. Umezulike.
It
was learned that no fewer than eight other corrupt judges are being
investigated and would soon be picked up to have their day in court.
bAttempts by Vanguard to get the names of the eight judges were
unsuccessful last night, but they are said to be spread across the
country. Attempts to speak with the Director General of the DSS, Mr.
Lawal Daura, proved abortive, as the agency is yet to appoint a
spokesman since the last one was retired last year.
Source: Vanguard
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