We oppose death for looters, NBA tells NLC

Another strong voice has been added to the opposition of the death sentence proposed by organised labour in NIgeria last week for corrupt public officials.

The voice was that of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), which argued that it would not be ideal to pick up what many other countries are trying to jettisoning in their legal system.

The President of the NBA, Barrister Augustine Alegeh (SAN), who stated this said to stem corruption in the country, the government just needs to evolve measures that would prevent people from looting the treasury, pointing out that the newly introduced Treasury Single Account (TSA) was a good measure in that direction.

Alegeh, who spoke while receiving the National President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Wabba, at the Bar House in Abuja, also maintained that the plea bargain which has become an integral part of the justice system in the country was equally a good means of recovering stolen money for people.

His words: “It was on the front pages last week that people who are involved in corruption matters should be sent to the gallows and be killed, that there should be capital punishment and I said no.

“The international trend is that every country is moving away from capital punishment. So, where the world is moving away from, why are we going there? In corruption cases, the focus is on recovering of the money. Let us recover that money and use it to develop our country and not to kill the man.

Read also: NLC, TUC task FG to release names of looters

“If you kill the man and the family has the money, have we made any progress? So, let us go for what is right. For us, plea bargain which is in our new criminal justice act is very good. If we had done plea bargain with some of the governors in 2007, we would have had more money in the system than today.

“Where ever there is corruption, it is money meant for development that has been taken away. The first thing that we should be looking at is how do we get this money and put back it into the system to aid development. Punishment should take the back stage, while you reform.

“What we should be concerned about is what measure do we put in place to ensure that we are not looted, instead of waiting to be looted and then kill the person. We must be proactive and that is our stand. Our position is that the government will put in place proactive measure to ensure that pilfering of government resources is stemmed.

“The Treasury Single Account being introduced by the government now is a step in that direction. Let us first know where the money is, we know what we are expecting, we know the account.

“If you know that everybody is looking at that account, you cannot say that the money has not come or the money is in one account or the other. I commend government, but I think there are more steps government can take”.

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