By AbdulRaheem Aodu
Kaduna
In a bid to improve President Muhammadu Buhari’s fight against corruption, some members of the National Assembly are in discussion over the establishment of special courts to handle corruption cases and lessen the burden on regular courts, while avoiding the delays currently affecting the conclusion of such cases.
Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Barde, who disclosed this yesterday in an interaction with the media in Kaduna, said with the special courts, corruption cases would not continue to linger, while in many cases the suspects died before the cases were concluded.
He said: “We have started discussing with some members in the National Assembly on how to set up special courts for corruption cases. It is only ICPC and EFCC that are to do all these jobs. It is just Dasukigate and arms deals that are being investigated now. It has not gone to ministries and other areas. People are using the courts to delay judgments; former governors have been in EFCC for the past eight years but they have not even gone to the courts yet.
“Corruption does not know party; I am a believer that people should be punished for whatever offence they have committed people steal N1,000 and they are put in jail. My position is that if somebody steals N100 million to N1 billion they should have their throats slit, so that when people see them they would know what they have done. If they steal anything above N1 billion, they should be hanged and have their property confiscated.”
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, who lamented the fracas between Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i of Kaduna state and Senator Shehu Sani representing Kaduna Central Senatorial zone, said the rancour over the missing budget was a sign that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was not ready to rule the country.
