‘Looters don’t deserve bail,’ Lawyer says

monjola sotubo

April 1, 2016 1:16 PM

Falana also said that some of the ongoing high profile corruption cases might not be concluded before President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure expires in 2019.

Femi Falana

Falana also said that some of the ongoing high profile corruption cases might not be concluded before President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure expires in 2019, Punch reports.

The lawyer made the remarks in a paper delivered on Thursday, March 31, 2016, at a roundtable on the anti-corruption war convened by the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of the University of Lagos.

“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,” 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 added.

Former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili was one of participants at the roundtable which was chaired by the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, Professor Itse Sagay.

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