Mustapha Akanbi
Muhammad Mustapha Adebayo Akanbi (11 September 1932 – 3 June 2018) was
a Nigerian lawyer and judge, who served as President of the Nigerian Court of
Appeal (1992–1999) and inaugural head of Nigeria's Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (2000–2005).[1]
Early years
Muhammad
Mustapha Adebayo Akanbi was born on 11 September 1932 at Accra, Ghana,
to Muslim parents from Ilorin in Nigeria.
After completing secondary school he worked as an Executive officer in the
Ghana Civil Service. He was also active as a trade unionist. Moving to Nigeria,
he worked in the School Broadcasting Department of the Ministry of Education.[1]
Lawyer and judge
Akanbi
obtained a scholarship to study law at the Institute of Administration, now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria,
followed by legal studies in the United Kingdom. He was called to the English
Bar in 1963, and was called to the Nigerian Bar in January 1964. He joined the
Ministry of Justice and became a Senior State Counsel in 1968. In 1969 he set
up in private practice in Kano.
In 1974 he was appointed a judge of the Federal Revenue Court, and in January
1977 he was elevated to the Court of Appeal Bench. In 1992 he was made
President of the Nigerian Court of Appeal, a position he held until retiring in
1999.[1]
His
son is also a lawyer, becoming Chairman of the Ilorin branch of the Nigerian Bar Association.[2]
Independent Corrupt Practices Commission
In
2000 President Olusegun Obasanjo
appointed Akanbi as Chairman of the newly established Independent Corrupt
Practices Commission (ICPC). By 2004, the ICPC had
failed to obtain any significant convictions, and Akanbi publicly questioned
why the government had set up the ICPC and appointed competent people to run it
"only to frustrate it from performing by starving it of funds". He
said that another issue was that the law forbade it from investigating corrupt
practices dating before the creation of the ICPC.[3] In March 2004, Akanbi urged parliamentarians to ratify the
United Nations and the African Union Conventions Against Corruption, which
would greatly assist the struggle against corruption.[4]
As
of July 2005, the ICPC charged 85 people but had only secured two
corruption-related convictions. Commenting on this record, Akbani said he
suspected that some judges had been paid off to toss out cases.[5] In September 2005 Akanbe said, "Corruption has been
described as a cankerworm, a malaise that has afflicted our nation and done
havoc to our corporate existence". He attributed the problem to lack of
will by past military leaders to fight corruption, inconsistency in government
policies, and reluctance by law enforcement agencies to arrest and prosecute
"sacred cows".[6]
In retirement
Akanbi
retired in 2005 on completion of the first term of office.[1] He joined the board of the Justice and Law Enforcement
Reformation Organization, a non-profit organization that aims to eradicate
corruption and poverty from the perspective of the Judiciary and Law
Enforcement agencies.[7] In 2006, Akanbi established the Mustapha Akanbi Foundation
in Ilorin, Kwara State,
dedicated to strengthening civil society groups, governmental agencies and
private business concerns and helping them imbibe a culture of transparency and
accountability.[8]
In
August 2009 he called on Nigerian Muslims to shun the ideas of the Boko
Haram sect, which teaches that
non-Islamic education is a sin. He said that both Western and Islamic education
were germane to the development of mankind.[9]
References
· "PROFILE
OF AN ICON". United Action Against Corruption & Injustice
International. Archived from the original on 2011-07-28. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
· · "Interviews:
We Hate Injustice In My Family".
The Voice Foundation. 2008-05-19. Archived from the
original on 2008-12-21. Retrieved
2009-10-12.
·
"NIGERIA:
Why Obasanjo's war on corruption is faltering". UN Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 30 July 2004. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
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