Like armed robbers, kidnappers, looters don’t deserve bail, Falana says

Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has said persons who looted the nation’s treasury and standing trial do not deserve bail.

Falana, who was speaking at a round table organised by the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of the University of Lagos, on Thursday, said: “Since victims of grand corruption including armed robbery and kidnap suspects are not usually admitted to bail, those who are charged with looting the treasury should no longer be granted bail.”

The lawyer, who canvassed for the creation of special courts to try corruption cases, also said he was worried that the ongoing high profile cases may not be concluded before the expiration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure in 2019.

Falana, who was represented by Mr. Wahab Shittu, spoke on the topic, “Rule of Law and Treatment of Politically-exposed corruption cases,” argued that if the Buhari government did not undertake an urgent reform of the criminal justice system, including creating special courts, its anti-corruption war efforts would amount to nothing.

The fiery lawyer also berated the Nigerian Bar Association and the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, over their call for President Buhari to respect the rule of law. He branded them as insincere.

Falana said, “The Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria has urged the government to fight corruption under the rule of law. On its own part the NBA has censored the Federal Government for violating the human rights of certain suspects. But neither the BOSAN nor the NBA has deemed it fit to caution the members of the legal profession who are determined to frustrate the prosecution of corruption cases.

“As far as both bodies are concerned, human rights are the exclusive reserve of the bourgeois. Hence, the tenets of the rule of law are only invoked when the trial of VIPs is involved, while human rights are violated in Nigeria when the looters of the treasury are arrested and detained for a few days without trial.”

He queried the silence of BOSAN and NBA when “70 soldiers were recently tried in camera, convicted and sentenced to death for demanding weapons to fight the well-armed terrorists,” and why the two bodies were not bothered about the plight of “40,000 out of the 52,000 prison inmates who are awaiting trial under dehumanising conditions.”

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