Firsts Baba Isa|4 September 2017
About a month ago, the President appointed the venerable Chief Okoi Obono-Obla as Chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Properties and this resurrected or brought to our collective consciousness the existence of a 34 years old law that has been gathering dust in our legal dustbin; where good laws are thrown when leaders lack the political will to implement them.
RECOVERY OF PUBLIC PROPERTY (SPECIAL PROVISIONS) ACT is “an Act to make provisions for the Investigation of the Assets of any Public Officer who is alleged to have been engaged in corrupt practices, unjust enrichment of himself or any other person who has abused his office or has in any way breached the Code of Conduct for Public Officers contained in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” This sounds like sweet music to the ear and I will show you why.
This Act if properly implemented will become the missing link in the fight against corruption. Even as a lawyer, I never knew this beautiful law existed. For long I have always wondered why we go round and round trying to investigate a person accused of corruption instead of simply looking at his assets or lifestyle to ascertain the fact that such a person is indeed corrupt. If a man is alleged to have raided my poultry farm and he is later found with 30 pots of chicken pepper soup, the fact that I did not catch him when he was stealing my chickens should not matter; what should matter is that the man cannot afford 30 pots of chicken stew before now and ipso facto, he is corrupt.
That is a crude illustration of how the Recovery of Property Act works. The Panel is empowered to investigate the assets of a public officer and if the assets are not in tandem with his income, then he is toast. Section 1 of the Act outlines the functions, powers and constitution of Assets Investigation Panels. The panel is constituted for the purposes of: “1. Investigation of assets of public officers.” This investigation is:
“(1) For the purpose of ascertaining whether any public officer-
(a) Has been engaged in corrupt practices or has corruptly enriched himself or any other person;”
The purpose of this investigation is as clear as crystal: it is to look at the assets of a public officer and determine if he has been engaged in corrupt practices or corruptly enriched himself. No plenty grammar. Public officials declare their assets before taking public office, so if their assets are found to exceed their previous assets declared and their salaries/earnings within a particular period cannot explain it, they are toast.
Paragraph (b) of section rounds it of thus:
“(b) has by virtue of abuse of his office contributed to the economic adversity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, or has in any other way been in breach of the Code of Conduct, the President may constitute a panel to conduct an investigation into any matter with which the officer has been concerned in the performance of his duties or to conduct an investigation into the assets of any such public officer.”
This is what Section 2 of the Act has to say:
“(2) Any public officer who-
(a) has engaged in corrupt practices or has corruptly enriched himself or any other person;
(b) has by virtue of abuse of his office contributed to the economic adversity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria;
(c) has in any other way been in breach of the Code of Conduct; or
(d) has attempted, aided, counselled, procured or conspired with any person to commit any of the offences set out in this section, at any time after 30 September 1979 shall be guilty of an offence under this Act and upon conviction shall, apart from any other penalty prescribed by or pursuant to any other provision of this Act, forfeit the assets, whether movable or immovable property connected with the commission of the offence, to the Federal Government.”
What the just quoted section established is that when the asset of any person is not in tandem with his earnings, then he will be guilty of corruption and be made to forfeit the assets to the federal government.
The Act exhibited comprehensiveness when it extended its tentacles to every other Nigerian, not just public officers. Section 2 states that:
“(1) The provisions of this Act shall apply to any other person to the same extent as it applies to a public officer.
(2) Any person who engages in any manner whatsoever in any form of corrupt practice or corruptly enriches himself or any other person (whether a public officer or not) or has engaged in any unlawful activity in any form whatsoever, including banking or other financial business-
(a) May have his assets investigated by the panel constituted under subsection (1) of section 1 of this Act; and
(b) Shall be tried under this Act and if found guilty of an offence shall be convicted by the Federal High Court.”
It is also common knowledge that most public officials loot public funds and hide in accounts carrying names of friends and relatives; some even acquire properties in the names of relatives and cronies. Section 3 (5) of the Act deals squarely with this thus: “Where the panel is satisfied that any person, not being a public officer, but related to, or otherwise connected with a public officer, appears to have acquired assets far in excess of any income from his known or ostensible means of livelihood, the provisions of this Act shall apply with necessary modifications in respect of such a person as they apply in respect of a public officer.”
With this law, there is definitely no hiding place for looters of our commonwealth. It is time we meet the political will to implement this law with the public goodwill in the fight against corruption. Let’s stop the pretense, we know all the corrupt people in our society. We know those military officers, those police officers, and those government workers who are driving cars and building houses that their lifetime salaries cannot even afford. Let’s stop celebrating them and giving them chieftaincy titles; let’s start reporting them. Once the panel gets a report from you, they will swing into action to investigate the assets of these individual in a bid to recover these properties for our public good and punish them in accordance with the Act.
Section 10 of the Act states that:
“(1) The penalties which a Federal High Court may impose upon conviction of any person to which this Act applies shall, apart from forfeiture or any other penalty prescribed by or pursuant to any of the foregoing provisions of this Act, be either-
(a) imprisonment for a term not exceeding 21 years; or
(b) in cases where the Federal High Court arrives at a finding that undeclared assets (whether in Nigeria or elsewhere) of such person have a value of or amount to not less than N1,000,000 or its equivalent in any other currency or combination of currencies, a sentence of life imprisonment.
(2) Where a person is charged with an offence but the evidence establishes an attempt to commit the offence, he may be convicted of having attempted to commit that offence, although the attempt is not separately charged, and punished as provided in subsection (1) of this section.
(3) Where a person is charged with an offence under this Act but the evidence established the commission of another offence under this Act the offender shall not be acquitted but he may be convicted of that other offence and punished as provided in subsection (1) of this section.”
I wish the Chairman and other members of the Panel all the best. I pray that in accordance with the powers conferred on it by the Act to “… regulate its own proceedings as it may deem fit”, he sets up a system, build a competent and passionate team of assistants, researchers and prosecutors to bring the letters of this law to life. The future of our country depends on this. In the coming weeks, I hope to do a series of articles in continuation of the exploration of this Act.
First Baba Isa (FBI) is a Legal Practitioner and writes from Abuja.
07037162029; meandisa@gmail.com
