Extrajudicial Destruction Of The Vessel Used In Stealing Oil: Worst solution to a bad situation, by Shehu Bashir Esq
It came to many truly patriotic Nigerians with such joy of hope to know that another thief of our common patrimony has been caught in the act, stealing our oil. It is so reassuring to observe that the thieves of our common resources are being caught on daily basis, with the reinvigorated commitment of everyone, as championed by the President, Commander in Chief, President Tinubu. Indeed, there is a new Sheriff in town.
However, much as I am happy we are collectively catching the thieves, I am not convinced on the rationale behind NNPCL’s intention to destroy the caught vessels in such an extrajudicial manner, raising our suspicion of complicity of purpose. What exactly is the known and unknown reason for this destruction? NNPCL Management must now know that the edifice they are administering is no more a conduit pipe of corruption, much less that the management will use it privilege to cover up any illicitness. This act is at worst an impediment to thorough investigation and proper management of crime.
An item used in the commission of a crime, caught under financial crime Act is automatically dispossessed from the criminal. However, destroying such item , especially in such hasty manner, is irrational, needless, suspicious and at worst illegal. More over that the vessel was discovered to have been registered to a certain company, (believably in Nigeria), when such company is to be prosecuted, which evidence will you present in court to get justice? Destroying an evidence in a criminal investigation while the case is still on or why no court has directed in that direction is in itself a crime and should not be adopted as a good strategy to managing crime, especially financial crimes.
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As though many did not know, there is an existing law called Proceed of Crimes Recovery and Management Act that takes care of the manner to dispossess and disposes proceeds of crime. Destruction of the instrument of crime is not one of them unless otherwise directed by any court of law, in chamber or in courtroom. This is very sad. The item when seized should be transfered to the appropriate authority who will now value and sell, making heavy proceeds for government. This is the law. The exemption of this is in hard drugs which could cause damage if recycled back into the society.
Alot is wrong in this exercise and I am not scared of saying it. I reflect with pain in my heart the conspiracy and conspirators that worked against the passage of POCRMA Act to operate and give birth to an independent agency whose major responsibility will be to manage all proceeds of crimes, selling and the remittance of the proceeds to federal government purse. But because some people do not want the crime of corruption to be properly tackled, they frustrated the Bill as drafted and changed the nitty-gritty of the law to operate as a floating legislation for all other crime management agencies like EFCC, Custom, NDLEA, Police, ICPC, etc, to tap and utilize only to cover any such cases before them. It was a gang-up of all these agencies against the establishment of Proceeds of Crime Recovery and Management Agency. It was one of the worst legislative distortion in our political history.
At the appropriate time, we will all know why these agencies chose to frustrate the establishment of POCRMA as an agency so that they can have unchecked power to manipulate the management of the proceeds of crime in their jurisdiction.
I know this much because I was one of the drafters of the Bill then. I did that along with a brother and a friend, Barr. Sulayman Kuku the former Executive Secretary of Administration of Criminal Justice Act, who was wickedly removed from his position by former AG Malami just for advising and insisting on doing the right thing with regards to the status of POCRMA.
There are much that we know and much more that we know how to do but that are not being done right. Certain criteria of choice is being misapplied for the operation of governance which itself is counterproductive. And we must not allow illegality to be a tradition.
I have said this before and I will say it again – first and foremost, nobody should be considered to serve in this administration on the altar of academic qualifications or competency without the confirmation of his/her loyalty and passion for the success of this administration, Tinubu and Nigeria. There are many “evil geniuses” hovering around who “knows” the job but don’t have the love of this nation at heart to the job the true way it should be patriotically done. Many of the people we met on ground are transactional agents, many will also come with such motive. We need to weed off these existing agents and we must not allow new ones to brood.
I must insist, there are better way to handle things like this without making all of us look like foolish. You can’t salvage a bad situation with the worst solution. Deterrence of crime to a criminal should not be a loss to the enforcer (government) of the crime at the same time. A criminal’s loss should be government’s gains, either in low crime rate or value to the government in the utilization of the proceeds of crime as enshrined in the POCRMA Law.
May God help Nigeria to grow, Amin.
*GOD IS HERE*
