The senate yesterday rejected the nomination of Pius Olayiwola Aderemi, as the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).

Aderemi, a retired Supreme Court justice, was dropped by the Senators on account of age. He is 72 years of age.

President Goodluck Jonathan had last year December nominated Aderemi to head the  that nation’s foremost anti-graft agency.

Had his nomination succeeded, Aderemi would have become the third retired Supreme Court Judge to head the commission. He was to succeed Emmanuel Ayoola, another retired Supreme Court judge.

The senate’s action was sequel to the report of its Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti Corruption, which screened him and advised the senate to reject his nomination.

They argued that ICPC “is in dire need of focus, repositioning, and effectiveness.”

“The committee believes that a person over the age of 70 years will be unable to perform this task optimally,” the report read.

The committee further argued that “since the establishment of ICPC, it has been headed by old men, all retired justices of the Supreme Court and that that have impaired the performance of the commission.

The committee was of the view that it is not only retired Supreme Court Justices that could be appointed chairman of the agency.

According to them,  the provisions of the relevant sections of the ICPC Act clears the  misconception that it is only retired Supreme Court Justices that can chair the commission. “Section 3 sub sections 3 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Act 2000, which states that chairman of the commission who has held or is qualified to hold office as a judge of a superior court of record,

Chairman of the Committee , Senator Sola Akinyede who read the report said; “Even though ICPC is four years older than the EFCC, the committee believes the reason why the ICPC, unlike EFCC, has not done much in terms of establishment of its infrastructure and the effectiveness of its operations is simply because the two previous chairmen were too old to cope with the tasking and demanding rigours of the position,” the committee argued in its report.

-Leadership

Posted by admin on Feb 10 2011. Filed under Legislature, Senate, Top Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry