The Senate has amended the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Act to accommodate two years imprisonment without option of fine to any individual who writes false petition or gives false information to officials of the commission.
The ICPC amendment bill was proposed by the Senate Committee on Anti – Corruption and Financial Crimes chaired by Kwari Abdu (Kaduna North), and a report of the committee was presented at the plenary on Tuesday.
Under the ICPC Establishment Act, provisions are made for the protection of anybody who gives information to the commission in respect of an offence committed or likely to be committed by any other person.
Mr Abdu, while presenting the committee’s report at plenary, proposed two years imprisonment with option of N100,000 fine as punishment for anybody making false allegation against any individual.
When the report was thrown for debate, Adamu Ailero (Kebbi Central) opposed the recommendation of the Senate Anti – Corruption Committee on the ground that the punishment was too lenient.
He proposed that the option of a N100,000 fine should be removed from the punishment recommended for making false allegations against any individual.
“Punishment of 100,000 for making false allegations against public officers is too small. Many people are suffering as a result of that. Even we senators are still suffering from that. The section should be substituted with five years imprisonment without option of fine.”
While Mr Ailero was speaking, many of the senators echoed that the punishment for making false allegations through petitions or other means should be between five to ten years imprisonment without option of fine.
Responding, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, said it was better to leave the punishment without option of fine in order to protect innocent people from being victimized.
Mr Lawan submitted that if there was no option of fine, “those who want to commit the offence will have to think twice.”
The senate president therefore passed an amendment of the ICPC Act to award two years imprisonment for making false allegations against any individual.
“It is to make the ICPC better. I believe that we have done a very good job by doing the scrutiny we did,” he said.
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