The President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Afam Osigwe, SAN, has stated that the Nigerian judiciary is not as corrupt as it had been portrayed in recent times.
Osigwe, in an interview with Sunday PUNCH, said the Judiciary was also not the most corrupt institution in Nigeria.
He noted that the perception of corruption had been somewhat exaggerated, stating that reports from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the National Bureau of Statistics, and various anti-corruption agencies were without facts.
However, the NBA president acknowledged that there were a few bad eggs within the system who were tarnishing the institution’s reputation and emphasised the need for them to rid themselves of corrupt practices.
Osigwe stated this while responding to the remarks made by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission Chairman, Musa Aliyu, SAN.
Aliyu had at the 2024 Annual lecture/Award ceremony organised by the Crime Reporters Association of Nigeria, said the justice system in Nigeria was highly corrupt.
“The widespread corruption within the justice system, including bribery, influence peddling and attitudinal challenges are more fundamental and daunting.
“I dare say that the justice sector remains a focal point of concern, particularly regarding bribery involving stakeholders in the justice sector, and despite limited public contact, judicial officials exhibit relatively high bribery prevalence, hence the need for targeted anti-corruption measures in this sector,” Aliyu said.
However, the NBA president said while there was corruption in the judiciary, it was not as high as reported.
Osigwe said, “I will be burying my head in the sand if I should pretend that there is no form of judicial corruption but I do not agree that the judiciary is one of the most corrupt institutions in Nigeria.
“But we must as a body in the legal profession accept that there are some bad eggs amongst us, lawyers and judges who have brought a bad name to the legal profession and to the judiciary especially. This may have accounted for the negative perception of the judiciary but I don’t think it is as bad as it is painted.
“I just want to suggest that we should go out and do some retrospection and ask ourselves where did we get it from? When did we lose the confidence of the public, why did people start seeing us as among the most corrupt in the society? There is a lot of work to do, and to do this, the National Judicial Council must rev up its disciplinary process to ensure that those accused of corruption are properly investigated.”
