ANA: Short biography of the Late Justice Mustapha Adebayo Akanbi
Mustapha Adebayo Akanbi (11 September 1932 – 3 June 2018) was
a Nigerian lawyer, judge and head of Nigeria's Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, where he
served between the years of 2000 and 2005.
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.
Lawyer and judge
Mustapha
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. His son is also a successful Lawyer, becoming Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ilorin Branch.
Independent Corrupt Practices Commission
In
2000 President Olusegun Obasanjo
appointed Akanbi as Chairman of the newly established Independent Corrupt
Practices Commission (ICPC). Four years later, the ICPC
had failed to make any significant convictions. 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. In March 2004, Justice
Mustapha Akanbi urged parliamentarians to ratify the United Nations and the
African Union Conventions Against Corruption, which would greatly assist the
struggle against corruption.
As
of July 2005, the ICPC charged 85 people but had only secured two
corruption-related convictions. Commenting on this record, Akanbi said he
suspected that some judges had been paid off to toss out cases. In September
2005 Akanbi 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".
In retirement
Akanbi
retired in 2005 on completion of the first term of office, and was succeeded by
Emmanuel Ayoola.
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. 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.
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.
In April 2018 the late Justice Akanbi
graced the national capacity building workshop held by the National arm of the
Association of Nigerian Authors at the knowledge platform in Ilorin where he
advised the Association and blessed its activities.
He
died on 3 June 2018 at the age of 85 due to a brief illness.
References
· "PROFILE OF AN ICON".
United Action Against Corruption & Injustice International. Retrieved
2009-10-12.
· · "Interviews:
We Hate Injustice In My Family".
The Voice Foundation. 2008-05-19. 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.
· · "APNAC
West Africa Regional Conference: Abuja, Nigeria, March 11–12, 2004". APNAC (African Parliamentarian’s Network Against
Corruption). Retrieved 2009-10-12.
· · SHARON LaFRANIERE
(July 6, 2005). "Wrestling
With Corruption: Africa Tackles Graft, With Billions in Aid in Play". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
· · Ise-Oluwa Ige and
Dayo Lawal (September 16, 2005). "Akanbi
reels out causes of corruption in Nigeria". Vanguard (Lagos). Retrieved 2009-10-12.
· · Mustafa Abubakar
(25 August 2009). "Akanbi
Charges Muslims on Human Devt".
Daily Trust. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
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