The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) has joined its voice to condemn the sentence handed down by Justice J. Liman of the Federal High Court in Benin, Edo State, to the younger brother of former Edo State governor, Micheal Igbinedion, on Thursday April 30, 2015. The judge’s ruling came as a shock to many Nigerians who had expected a stricter punishment for the offences he was charged for. However he was sentenced to pay a fine of 3 million naira as opposed to the 25 billion public funds he was accused of stealing.
The Excutive chairman of CACOL, Debo Adeniran, accused the Government of shielding corrupt politicians. Adeniran said “The Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke is not interested in prosecuting anybody. Several people have been indicted, nobody has been made to face the wrath of the law; and for those who were brought before the law, the cases were shoddily prosecuted to the extent that many of them didn’t get deterrent punishment. As a matter of fact, it is a long drawn story of protecting corrupt people,” he said.
“It is unfortunate this is happening in Nigeria despite the many reforms this administration claimed it has brought to our judicial system. This is an indication that the reforms are just charade. The judgment ridicules our judiciary and judicial system. The paltry fine against Michael was a repeat of history, as a court had delivered a similar dubious judgement in favor of his elder brother seven years ago.
In 2008, the former Governor of Edo state, Lucky Igbinedion was charged for plundering the Edo State treasury while he was on seat as governor. The former governor was sentenced to six months in jail with the option of N3.5 million fine by a Federal High Court in Enugu after a plea bargain had been reached with Farida Waziri, the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The former governor was also ordered to return N500 million and three of the houses he had gotten with funds he had stolen from the state’s treasury back to the Federal Government. 190 out of the 191 charges of corruption and money laundering against him was dropped following the bargain plea.
The EFCC which brought the charges against Micheal, said that the N25 billion had been stolen when Lucky was the governor of Edo state.
