Take your pick(s) from any of the following links to stories that make one wonder if the corruption cancer has not eaten so deep into the Nigerian fabric that there no longer seems any way out or the will to fight it by the Jonathan administration is not there.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/04/air-nigeria-recovers-75000-from-ex-executive-director/
http://www.punchng.com/news/n9-97bn-intercontinental-bank-waiver-sfu-invites-saraki-arrests-ex-md/
http://www.punchng.com/editorial/fuel-subsidy-report-time-to-wield-the-big-stick/
http://www.punchng.com/news/for-the-record/reps-fuel-subsidy-probe-report/
When will President Jonathan’s war on corruption start, or if it has started, when will the effects start to be felt? When will civil servants who loot have to be treated with more than suspensions and/or “reprimand”? How could banks with massive involvement in the massive looting that goes on daily not be given their just rewards?
I remember that about seven years ago, the old Riggs Bank – I once temped at the downtown D.C. Bank back in the 70s – was slapped with a $25 million for not reporting large money deposits to the appropriate government regulatory agencies. These supposedly dated back to the 70s and included the Saudis, Pinochet of Chile and, of course, an African head of State.
“In July 2004, the US Senate published an investigation into Riggs Bank, into which most of Equatorial Guinea’s oil revenues were paid until recently. This showed that accounts based at the embassy to the United States of Equatorial Guinea were allowed to make large withdrawals without properly notifying federal authorities. At least $35 million were siphoned off by long-time dictator of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, his family and senior officials of his regime. Simon Kareri, the Riggs employee in charge of the Equatorial Guinea and other accounts, stands accused of money-laundering in separate charges. As the account manager, it is alleged that he established a fake holding company in his wife’s name, and diverted funds into this account”. [Wikipedia.]
Riggs went under and became part of Bank PNC.
Will the banks being named in the various scams in Nigeria not have to face the music?
The Pension Fund investigation has revealed sordid details of bank culpability in the looting of pensioners’ funds, e.g. a civil servant with over fifty (50) bank accounts.
The idea of the never-ending searches for so-called foreign investors by retired General Obasanjo as president and, now, by Dr. Jonathan, his successor is a joke that has never been funny. On President Jonathan’s recent visit to Germany, it was reported that “Dr Jonathan also allayed the fear of investors and potential tycoons … his administration was packaging measures that would guarantee good returns for their investments … assured the gathering that Nigeria was an investors’ delight because of its favourable investment climate. Dr Jonathan said: “For those yet to take advantage of opportunities available in my country, I challenge you to take the plunge today and you would be glad you did. As they say, the taste of the pudding is in the eating.”
This call sounds like a badly-packaged ad to me.
As I once alluded in an essay about these endless searches for apparently elusive “foreign investors”, if we clean up our act, investors would not have to be begged; “if you build it, they will come”, I wrote, borrowing words from the baseball movie, Field of Dreams.
TOLA, April 22, 2012
April 23, 2012 at 5:24 am
In a response to a similar expression of bewilderment by an old boy of my alma mater about the cancerous corruption in Nigeria, I wrote: ”I think we’re making progress. The first step is exposing the thieves. The second and most difficult step is trying and convicting them. The last step is everybody imbibing the spirit of love your neighbour as thyself, and end of corruption. To move from first step to second step, all of us need to will intensely that it happens.”
April 23, 2012 at 11:00 am
Thanks, Prof. I agree with the way you’ve laid it out but I’m not in agreement we are making any progress. The sums being stolen are getting more and more mind-boggling, the impunity with which the looting is being done is becoming greater, the reasons/sources being claimed – when looters “condescend” to give any – are becoming ridiculous. Take, for example, one of the Pension Fund alleged looters who claim to have amassed the millions looted from what, at best, is a small business.
We have, to a great extent, reached Stage One – exposing the thieves or, at least, most of them but I think it’s where we’ve become stuck.
President Jonathan is in a position to move the fight forward but first, he is yet to make a declaration of his assets – ditto his spouse – as mandated by the Constitution. This is one of the ways he can lead the fight against corruption as shown in an earlier era by late General Murtala Muhammed.
Regards,
TOLA.
April 23, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Anti, pardon me if by asking you, your beating about the bush is ridiculous! Are we not doing the unthinkable by asking Jonathan to fight corruption when he himself has skeletons in his cupboard? Yoruba people say, ”bi a ko ba so omo iya eni loogun, omo baba kan koni beru eni” meaning charity should be seen to begin from home.
As you rightly said, apart from not declaring his assets as is entrenched in the constitution (hm, where is the rule of law?), the radar of EFCC was on him during his terms as Deputy and Gov of Bayelsta State. With the rubbish immunity on him like all governors, he climbed to become the Vee Pee and President respectively.
In the history of Nigeria he has scored a first: in moving from Dep Gov to Gov to Vee Pee and to President. By the grace of God he will score another first to become the first president of Nigeria to languish in jail if death does not save him the shame if we go the Rawlins way. Admittedly, it is painful seeing things going the way of the so called ”untouchables” but nemesis will catch up with them one day when we have the beautiful one on the throne of the office of the President in Nigeria.
April 23, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Dear Fatai,
Thank you v. much for this. I think we must continue to appeal to that sense of Dr. Jonathan, the decent man as many know him rather than President Jonathan, the PDP politician. It is true that he has free will like all men – and women – but to exercise it among the characters that populate his party may be difficult and, perhaps, out of mind! That is why we must continue to remind him that unless he can boldly step out and declare his assets and his wife does the same, members of his party who, from under retired General Obasanjo’s presidency, have become big burdens on Nigeria, will take his non-declaration of assets as acquiescence to the ways of the PDP.
Regards,
Tola.