Pension fund fraud N23.3bn: Outrage trails court judgement

News on Top yesterday as reactions poured in from different quarters on the two years jail term handed a director in the pension office, John Yakubu Yusuf, after pleading guilty to a three-count charge of stealing N23.3 billion pension fund. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Senior Staff Association of Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutes and Allied Institution (SSAUTHRIAI) kicked against the judgment, describing it as an encouragement of corruption.
Founder, Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr. Fredrick Fasehun and National Coordinator, Committee for Democracy and Rights of the People (CDRP), Mr. Amitolu Shittu, also described the judgment as a pointer to the endemic corruption bedevilling the nation’s judiciary. Both NLC and CDRP called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) not only to appeal the judgment but to beam its searchlights on the judiciary and fish out the corrupt ones for prosecution.
An Abuja High Court presided over by Justice Abubakar Talba had sentenced Yusuf to two years
imprisonment with an option fine in the sum of N750, 000. In its reaction to the judgment, the Labour said the judgment ‘has clearly demonstrated that laws and judicial institutions are not capable of protecting the interest of ordinary people.’
In a statement signed by NLC’s acting president, Kiri Mohammed, the Labour said for Justice Talba to have convicted “such a high profile thief who has enriched himself with money reserved for people who have served this country honestly and have retired into abject poverty and penury to a scandalous two years imprisonment with an option of fine in the ridiculous sum of N750, 000 shows clearly that the Nigerian judiciary is being compromised.”
Speaking through its National Secretary, Alhaji Moshood Akinade, SSAUTHRIAI said the judgment did not commensurate with the offence committed but rather an encouragement to others to perpetuate more heinous crime. “It is an encouragement to more people to be corrupt and continue to perpetrate more atrocities. The culprit does not deserve any fine at all. He should have been sent to jail straight,” SSAUTHRIAI stated. OPC founder, Fasheun, said the judgment was a reflection of how Nigeria had been fighting its corruption through corrupt acts and judicial pronouncements.
“Nigeria is fighting corruption with corruption and the end result is corruption. That is Nigerian method to fight corruption. Every leader in the country is corrupt and compromising and that is why Nigeria is unstable and insecure,” Fasheun said. He called for a decent constitution that would face corruption eye-to-eye, face-to-face and also for the leadership to be upright and uncompromising. Also reacting to the judgment, Shittu said the ludicrous judgment was an eye opener to all Nigerians and anti-graft agencies on the endemic corruption the judiciary was enmeshed in.
“The judgment is an abuse of office and an indication that our judiciary is not ready to fight the menace of corruption, which has reduced the rating of Nigeria and Nigerians in the international world.” “I think the National Judicial Council (NJC) should be disbanded. It has failed the nation in its assignment to appoint and accredit incorruptible judges for the nation. The EFCC should also beam its searchlight on the judiciary and prosecute the corrupt ones. By the time some of the judges are sent to jail, others will sit up. I don’t see why a corrupt judge cannot go to jail like corrupt president and lawmakers,” Shittu added.