Orji Uzor Kalu praised the Supreme Court for quashing his 12-year jail term
The looters know how to use the system, especially the judiciary to no end
Nigeria is a nation of the more you look the less you see. Corruption is a lucrative enterprise in this nation of over 200 million. Corruption runs through the vain of the nation like blood. And corruption has been the albatross the nation has had to carry. It is the reason 80 million of its citizens are living in abject poverty according to a recent statistics. Government in Nigeria is the embodiment of corruption, the very oxygen which sustains this murderous scourge year round. The virus festers in the executive, legislative and judicial arms of the nation’s government. It is in Nigeria you hear the term “looting the treasury.” And it is very easy for government functionaries, be they politicians, their surrogates or civil servants to “loot” as they so wish and get away with it. The narratives of corruption is now a beaten track that bore victims and beneficiaries of this demon. The looters know how to use the system, especially the judiciary to no end.

It is in Nigeria that a former soldier in the person of Sani Abacha, orchestrated a coup d’tat, killed as many people as he could while illegally holding the reins of government and proceeded to loot the nation’s treasury to the tune of over $5 billion and got away with it. His loots are now subject of litigations around the world. The loot itself is now a legend in Nigeria. The western nations where these loots were warehoused are now doing the Nigerian people “favour” returning them piecemeal. Most of the returned loots have since been re-looted. It’s amazing the family of the late dictator had the effrontery to even lay claim to the looted funds. That is how corruption is done, only in Nigeria.

Looter-in-chief late Sani Abacha
In Nigeria, government officials indicted for corruption thump their noses at the system because they know how to circumvent it, they use the proceeds of corruption to buy themselves crooked attorneys who are adepts at corrupting the temple of justice. Several indicted former Nigerian state governors have used the money looted in the various states they presided over to frustrate their prosecution or bought themselves reprieve from the law.

Last December, there was rejoicing across Nigeria when a High Court in the nation sentenced a former state governor Orji Uzor Kalu to 12 years imprisonment for looting his impoverished state of Abia to the tune of over 7 billion Naira. The havoc Kalu’s looting did to Abia could be seen in the once boisterous industrial town of Aba. Barely five months into his jail term, the Nigerian Supreme court on May 8, 2020, in a unanimous decision ordered the release of Kalu on the ground that Justice Mohammed Idris, who convicted Kalu, was already a justice of the Court of Appeal, when he passed his sentence. The Supreme court held that a Justice of the Court of Appeal cannot operate as a judge of the Federal High Court, and ordered the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to reassign the case for trial. And as you’re reading this Kalu is a free man. Upon his release, he issued a statement praising the Supreme court. Only in Nigeria!