•COTRIMCO says 1,479 graft related cases pending in courts nationwide
THE Corruption and Financial Crime Cases Trial Monitoring Committee (COTRIMCO) has said 324 judgments were delivered within the last six months by courts designated to hear corruption related cases nationwide.
It also said that 12 of such cases were struck out and judgment have been reserved in 62 cases, leaving 1,479 cases out of the total 1,812 corruption cases pending in courts nationwide as at last November, when it was inaugurated.
Director of Information, the National Judicial Council (NJC) Soji Oye said yesterday in a statement that information about the number of cases decided and those pending were contained in COTRIMCO’s “report card” submitted to the NJC.
CONTRIMCO, which is headed by a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Suleiman Galadima, was inaugurated by NJC in November last year to tour the six geo-political zones to determine the causes of slow pace of corruption and financial crimes cases in courts.
Oye said the committee had, in the last six months, crisscrossed the country to monitor the activities of the courts designated to hear corruption cases and to ensure speedy dispensation of the cases.
He said the committee divided the country into three sub-committees for ease of operation and they include Zone A: Abuja and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT); Zone B: Northern Zone and Zone C: Southern Zone.
Zone A comprises courts in Abuja, including the Supreme Court, Appeal Court and the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory; Zone B includes courts in the three geo-political zones in the Northern part of the country; while Zone C comprises of courts in the three geo-political zones in the southern part of the country.
Part of the statement reads: “Of the total number of 324 judgments delivered, the Supreme Court, in Zone A, delivered 52 judgments and reserved seven cases for judgment from the list of 125 cases pending before it, leaving an outstanding number of 73 cases.
“The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, within the period, also disposed of 74 appeals and reserved 11 for judgment from the list of 137 cases in its docket.
“The Federal High Court delivered two judgments from the 91 pending cases before it, while the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory likewise delivered three judgments and reserve one case for judgment, thereby leaving an outstanding number of 178 cases pending.”
It added: “In Zone B, Northern Zone, 62 judgments were delivered by the six Court of Appeal Divisions, 19 Federal High Court Divisions and 19 High Courts of various Northern States from the total number of 425 cases pending in the Zone, while 12 cases were struck out.
“From the 12 cases struck out, five are from the Court of Appeal and seven from High Courts of three states.
“The designated courts in Zone C (Southern Zone) have delivered judgments in 131 out of the 952 corruption and financial crime cases on-going at the various courts and reserved 43 cases for judgments.
“From the total number of judgements delivered in the zone, the Federal High Court delivered seven judgements out of a total of 304 cases pending before it; while the High Courts of 17 States delivered 124 cases from the 524 on-going in their various courts.
“The Court of Appeal in the zone has reserved 31 out of 121 appeals pending in the court for judgment. The Federal High Court, on its part, reserved three cases for judgment while the various state High Courts in the zone have reserved nine cases for judgment. The committee will continue the exercise after the courts’ vacation.”
