It is an abuse of power to make laws targeted at individuals
Without conducting a public hearing that involves all critical stakeholders as stipulated by their own rule, the Senate last week ‘amended’ the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000. In the process, the lawmakers whittled down the powers of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC). In a petty act that no self-respecting legislative institution should ever be involved in, the Senate also took away most of the powers of the commission’s chairman. While we commend the leadership and members of the House of Representatives for refusing to take the self-serving proposal transmitted to it by the Senate, we also urge them to throw out the entire bill.
Many of the provisions either tinkered with or added by the Senate in their cynical perversion of lawmaking are just too ridiculous. While Section 4(2) of the original act states that the chairman and any four board members of the commission shall constitute a quorum for meetings which is presided over by the chairman, the new provision states that the quorum for board meetings shall be “any five members of the board and the five members in attendance shall appoint a chairman to preside over the meeting.”
In a command-and-control structure of law enforcement agencies, this is not only strange, but tantamount to giving authority to subvert the powers of the chairman with attendant consequences. It is beyond absurd that any five members of the board can form a quorum for board meetings and randomly pick one of them to preside. The import of this amendment is that ‘any five members’ of the board can meet and take far reaching decisions for the commission without the appointed accounting officer who is the chairman.
It is very clear that the senators did not fully understand the import and full implications of the illogical ‘amendments’ they have made. One, attempts at cutting the powers of the ICPC chairman conflicts with the global recognised standard for law enforcement agencies where responsibility is not shared but vested in the agency’s head as the accounting officer. Two, the provisions vesting committees of the statutory board (mostly filled by politicians) with omnibus powers are unprecedented. The powers of law enforcement agencies cannot be subject to decisions of committees and political considerations.
Substituting political appointees of the president and members of the board with commissioners is bizarre to say the least. What happens to the ICPC officers who were recruited and specially trained for the purpose of driving the realisation of the mandate of the commission? An attempt to transmit the titles of commissioners to board members, who are political appointees of a law enforcement agency would create a situation unknown within law enforcement circles.
To demonstrate that the senators behind the ‘amendment’ were working to the answers, they only requested comments from a few selected civil society organisations on some clauses in the act. But that cannot substitute for a public hearing. In any case, not only was their action an affront to the constitution and the powers of the president to nominate a chairman and board members for government agencies and institutions but it is also glaring that the whole exercise was done in bad faith. About 3,200 constituency projects valued at N386 billion have been tracked by the Commission since 2019. Some of the arrow heads of this ‘amendment’ have question marks over their constituency projects which are under investigation by the ICPC.
Meanwhile, anti-corruption agencies all over the world are designed to be independent and free from political control and pressure. Therefore, whatever issues some senators may have with the current leadership of the ICPC, it is a gross abuse of power to enact legislations that are targeted at individuals.
