A rights group, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), has claimed that institutions meant to enforce anti-corruption laws were among the worst perpetrators of corruption in highly corrupt countries like Nigeria.

Making this claim while agitating for the creation of an International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC) on Saturday, the anti-corruption agency said that the perpetrators of corruption were getting smarter, most times evading national laws.

“The establishment of the IACC was long overdue given that perpetrators of corruption have continued to get smarter and more powerful, wriggling out of national laws most of the time,” HEDA said in a statement made available to Peoples Gazette. 

The organisation noted that the threat of corruption persists despite existing laws to combat it.

Further citing a communiqué issued after a hybrid conference held in Abuja, the anti-corruption group asserted that “corruption is harmful to the rule of law with the tragic irony being that in highly corrupt countries like Nigeria.

“It is the very institutions that are supposed to enforce the law and apply justice that are among the worst perpetrators of corruption, thus emphasising the need for an International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC),” the communiqué further read.

In September 2020, Peoples Gazette exposed how the current EFCC chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa sold at least 244 trucks worth between N20-30 million each to his proxies at N100,000, or slightly more, per unit.

However, ignoring the pending corruption case, President Muhammadu Buhari went ahead in February 2021 to appoint Mr Bawa to head the EFCC, drawing wide criticism from Nigerians.