The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) has advocated the establishment of anti-corruption courts to solely handle corruption cases.
Mr Godwin Oche, the Head of Research and Statistics, said on Thursday in Abuja.
He said such courts would speed up prosecution and conviction of culprits in the country.
“ICPC has been prosecuting through the courts and we’ve been securing convictions I know that we’ve gotten convictions may be not as many as Nigerians want.
“But ICPC does not have a court of its own, it does not have a tribunal like the Code of Conduct for instance, so it prosecutes its cases in the normal courts of the land and we know the problems, delays and all that in our court system.
“So those are parts of the problems ICPC has I know we have designated courts for anti-corruption cases that to me is not enough.
“If we could have anti-corruption courts solely dedicated to anti-corruption matters I think that will go a long way to help in speeding up the prosecution of corruption in Nigeria.”
Oche said one of the major challenges facing the commission was inadequate funding, adding that with proper funding, the commission would function better.
“ICPC as an organisation has problem with funding.
“As it is now, we ought to have offices in the states, at the local government, but we have just 14 state offices for now, and we don’t have any office at the local government level.
“Even at the headquarters, the staff strength is still a far cry from what it ought to be and these entire boil down to the issue of funding.
“Most of our operations, the investigations, the systems study, the public enlightenment are all activities that cost money.
“A situation where ICPC is not funded the way it ought to, it will definitely not be able to achieve all that it ought to achieve; that’s a problem.’’