The chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, has added his voice to calls for the setting up of special courts to handle corruption cases, saying that it would expedite trial processes.

He said that setting up of special anti-corruption courts would not only expedite these cases but also benefit judges, who will be able to remain focused knowing they have no other cases to distract them.

Lamorde made his view known in EFCCALERT, an in-house monthly publication of the anti-graft agency.

“I think it will be very helpful; it will improve the anti-corruption drive tremendously if dedicated courts or specialised courts are created or we designate certain courts specifically for economic and financial crimes and corruption. I think it will also give room for specialisation, making them proficient in what they do,” he stated.

“In a situation whereby a judge listens to a case of divorce and then the next case is armed robbery, the next one is rape, then they go into corruption, then he must have lost concentration because judges are human beings, no matter how good they are. So it will be very good if we can get a court designated for corruption and related cases,” he added.

In the same issue of the in – house magazine, the EFCC boss also address other issues, including recent allegations that the commission had failed to remit proceeds of property forfeited to government by corrupt public officials and the seeming unimpressive conviction record of the agency.

Alluding to the Senate probe of allegation of diversion of money and assets recovered from corrupt individuals by the commission, he observed that those who fritter away public funds put in their trust often look at other people as capable of doing the same,

A whistle blower, George Uboh, had petitioned the Senate accusing the EFCC chairman of failing to remit money recovered from corrupt Nigerians, including former governor of Bayelsa, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, to the federal government, an accusation that led to the invitation of the EFCC chairman by the Senate in August.

Reacting to Uboh’s accusations, Lamorde said: “You see, people judge others by their standards. If they are entrusted with public funds, they will misuse it, so they just assume every other person can do the same. So they look at you from their own perspective of what they may do or what they are doing. I think that is what is happening,” anti-corruption czar noted.

According to Lamorde, the EFCC has engaged an audit firm to go through the books of the commission since inception with a view to producing a comprehensive report of the agency’s war against corruption, to which the public will have access and which they can challenge if they are not satisfied with any aspect of it.

He also talked about selective investigation and witch hunting, two issues that have contributed to the poor perception people have of the agency, particularly with very few high profile cases successfully concluded in 12 years since it was created by former president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

On the perception that the agency has prosecuted only a few high profile cases successfully, Lamorde said suspects have the wherewithal to get the best defence lawyers, who deliberately prolong the cases using interlocutory injunctions and other delay tactics.

“When you say people want to see certain individuals being convicted, I think we are taking it away from the EFCC as an investigating body to the judiciary. For us, our duty is to investigate and charge people to court. I’m not looking at judicial officers, but the system itself. We have had instances where individuals that have been charged to court since 2006, we are still in court because of interlocutory applications they have been making.

“In a particular case, we went to Supreme Court twice on some of these applications, and anyone who is familiar with the judicial system in Nigeria will tell you how hard it is to go from a High Court to Court of Appeal to be heard and then judgment given; and then from there you proceed to Supreme Court, get listed and you are heard and judgment given. It takes not months but at times years.  So when you go twice depending on how long it took you, you may take more than five to six years to do that. So there is nothing we can do as an organization to fast track the process,” Lamorde explained.

Due to limited funds, Lamorde said the commission has had to streamline its operations, including prioritising cases to be investigated.