Date: 2013-03-26

First chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and a former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Mustapha Akanbi, has said corruption in the country can only be fought if there is political will by those in authority.

According to him, “corruption has permeated every facet of our lives. We hear the various scams. You cannot fight corruption unless there is political will by those in authority. If they have political will to fight corruption, then we would have gone half way in trying to solve the problem of governance. But if corruption is entrenched and we take steps that gives the impression that we have no regard for the eradication of corruption, then we are in trouble.”

Speaking with newsmen in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Monday, during the annual Mohammed Mustapha Akanbi public lecture, organised by the Faculty of Law, University of Ilorin (UNIILORIN), Justice Akanbi said in the fullness of time corrupt persons would suffer perdition in Nigeria.

In a lecture, entitled: “Challenges of administration of justice in the sustenance of good governance in trans-national era: Hindsights; insights and prognoses,” the guest lecturer, Justice Chima Nweze, bemoaned the challenge of continued application of anachronistic laws in the country’s judiciary.

Nweze, a justice of the Lagos division of the Court of Appeal, added that “it is indeed, amazing that many years after our independence, common law concepts which only found historical and jurisprudential justification on the peculiarities of English constitutional history can be pleaded to impede the enforcement of the rights of individuals against the Federal Government and its sundry agencies in Nigeria.”