Ozekhome kicks against proposed amnesty bill to looters

Ozekhome kicks against proposed amnesty bill to looters

A legal luminary, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, has kicked against the proposed amnesty to treasury looters.

Describing the proposed bill as scandalous, retrogresive, immoral, obsene and counterproductive, Ozekhome condemned the bill in its entirety saying, it is already dead on arrival.

In a statement signed and made available to to Daily Times yesterday, Chief Ozekhome said that the proposed bill was bore out of malice, and that those canvassing for it have corrupt tendencies.

He agreed with the provisions of section 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, which already allows for plea bargain, saying, “The section clearly provides that the prosecution may enter into a plea bargain with an accused person,either directly or through his representative, before the accused has entered his defence through giving of evidence in court.

“A plea bargain allows for the return of part, or the whole of loot or proceeds of crime,by an accused person,in exchange for a lesser punishment, where the prosecution’s case is weak,or where the accused has cooperated with the state and has agreed to make restitution for the victim of the crime”.

He however, stressed that a wholesome embrace and enactment of such a bill into a separate Act would amount to totally legalising and legitimizing corruption.

He said, “Such a law would send dangerous signals that corruption indeed pays, and that all that a corrupt public officer needs to do is to shamelessly steal the country blind and then quietly return part of the loot, whilst he and his family relax and enjoy the country’s treasury for the remaining part of their wretched and miserable lives.

Such a bill will undoubtedly ignite and encourage corruption, barefaced stealing of public funds and daring larceny of our collective national wealth and common patrimony in their naked forms.”