Former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mrs. Farida Waziri, on Tuesday said the war against corruption could not be won with the current set of criminal laws in the country.
Waziri said the criminal laws, most of which were inherited from the colonial masters, were no longer relevant.
She spoke in Abuja at the public presentation of a book, Law of Evidence in Nigeria, written by Chief Sebastine Hon, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
The ex-EFCC boss urged the National Assembly to repeal the current set of criminal laws and enact new, more effective ones.
She said, “It is a notorious fact that the corruption is being fought partly with archaic laws, the laws that are no longer suitable for the unpleasant situation we have found ourselves.
“At the time most of our laws were being enacted by the colonial masters, nobody envisaged cyber crime; nobody envisaged Internet fraud and nobody even envisaged manipulation of computer to defraud because those things were not there at the time.
“I use this singular opportunity to call on our members of the National Assembly to rise to the challenge.
“They should give us potent laws that can confront corruption and corrupt tendencies headlong.
“We must not shy away and we must not spare any effort to review and reform our laws to suit our present purposes.
“I charge our legal practitioners too to be concerned with the nation’s archaic laws and no effort should be spared to ensure that the laws are periodically reviewed and updated to meet the demands of the present age and developments.”
via nigerianeye
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