From 10% to 100%

Thirty years ago people were complaining in this country that top government officials collected ten percent of all contract sums from contractors as kickbacks. Revelations cascading out of the current Armsgate scandal suggest that this percentage has since climbed up to 100 percent. The centre of this daylight money bazaar under the Jonathan Administration was […]

Thirty years ago people were complaining in this country that top government officials collected ten percent of all contract sums from contractors as kickbacks. Revelations cascading out of the current Armsgate scandal suggest that this percentage has since climbed up to 100 percent. The centre of this daylight money bazaar under the Jonathan Administration was former National Security Adviser Colonel Mohamed Sambo Dasuki’s office, which seized control of both defence and campaign spending and proceeded to institute a system of corrupt enrichment previously unseen in this country.
Those of us who are old enough to remember previous probes in this country now believe that we watched comedy in those days. Numerous probe panels were set up in this country following the Gowon regime’s overthrow in 1975. Fellow students and I used to cross over from our school compound to the venue of the Justice Uthman Mohammed panel sittings in Sokoto, which probed cases of corruption in the old North Western State. The most startling revelation then was that a drilling rig bought by the North Western State Government went and drilled a borehole free of charge in the Military Governor’s personal farm. The rig was not stolen; it only drilled a borehole and came back. How does that sound for corruption these days?
With a difficult election campaign at hand for the Jonathan regime, it found a convenient cover in the Boko Haram war, mopped up funds from virtually every agency of government, threw all financial rules to the dogs, morphed the NSA’s office into a money bazaar and embarked on uncontrolled extra-budgetary spending, all in a blind push to bribe its way to another term in office. Weapons procurement, a traditional function of the Ministry of Defence was usurped by the NSA, together with direct control of the military service chiefs and the whole anti-insurgency war. These were seamlessly merged with the Jonathan 2015 election effort. Together, they made for an inscrutable system of disbursing public funds such as will make Mobutu Sese Seko green with envy.
The Jonathan/Dasuki system of mopping up funds from all government agencies in order to finance the ruling party’s re-election campaign is a world beater. Heads of government agencies were told to contribute to the campaign. The only way they could do so was to create dubious contracts and jettison all control processes. That trained civil servants all over the public service engaged in these acts without anyone blowing the whistle and without anyone resigning in protest should set us all thinking about the times we are in.
Then there was the role of the President himself. Where did trained civil servants in Nigeria get the idea that public funds can be disbursed in any manner and to any dubious purpose so long as the president approved it? That the Central Bank will give N40 billion to the NSA and another N20 billion to DSS [for onward transmission to PDP] simply because the President approved it, not even in writing, says something about the age we are in. It reminds me of an old film clip about the Governor of the Filipino Central Bank in the 1980s who transferred $4 billion straight to President Ferdinand Marcos’ Swiss account. When asked about it, he said Marcos approved it. When reminded that the president had no power to issue such an order, he said, “Don’t forget, Marcos was a dictator!” I am just wondering. Did Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala believe that Jonathan was a dictator when she handed over $320 million from the Abacha loot to the NSA just because the president approved it? She said Dasuki should account to Jonathan for how he spent the money. Is that what the law says? What about the Bureau of Public Procurement, Auditor General of the Federation and the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committees?
I think these abuses became possible because over the years, weapons procurement and defence spending in this country have been officially shrouded in secrecy.  Buhari should leave a lasting legacy by lifting the veil of secrecy off defence contracts. Why should it be a secret if Nigeria is buying tanks or helicopter gunships from France? The CIA knows about it; KGB knows about it; MI 6 knows about it; Mossad knows about it. Only our weak West African neighbours may not know about it but why does it matter if they do? If Nigeria has some new tanks it is better that our neighbours know about it, lest they attack us unknowingly. Even Boko Haram should know about it; what can they do when they hear that 100 tanks are rolling towards Sambisa Forest?
That NSA Dasuki paid N550m to This Day as compensation for the 2012 bombing of its Abuja and Kaduna offices raises one question: is it the Federal Government’s policy to pay compensation for everything destroyed by Boko Haram? If so, has it paid compensation for all the churches, mosques, luxury buses, markets and small buses destroyed by Boko Haram bombs, not to mention the villages and towns that were entirely razed as well as the people killed, wounded and displaced? What kind of policy is it that pays the rich victim and ignores the poor, hapless victim?
The same applies to the compensation paid to newspapers for losses suffered due to seizure of their copies. Quite alright, the military operation that seized newspapers was a horrible case of impunity and it served no security purpose. Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been much better if the newspapers had gone to court and won a claim, rather than strike a secret deal with NSA through NPAN. Newspapers are perishable goods but did government pay compensation to all the traders that lost other perishable goods such as onions, vegetables and livestock due to innumerable military check points? The curfews imposed in several states and the shutdown of GSM service in three states for nearly a year caused untold economic losses for which no compensation was paid.
Nigerians political parties also need to learn a lesson, that rather than improve their efficacy, unbridled spending of money actually undermines it. When money in billions is given to a Nigerian politician, he tends to hide most of it and commits a precious little to the intended purpose, such as mobilising spiritual warriors. Feeding a greedy Nigerian politician is akin to what Winston Churchill once likened to feeding a crocodile; “the more you feed the crocodile, the larger and hungrier it becomes.” So many billions spent and so few votes garnered.
I was just thinking. Murtala Mohammed fought corruption in Nigeria 40 years ago with a mass purge and many arrests. Buhari and Idiagbon did so again ten years later by jailing dozens of Second Republic politicians. Abacha too started his tenure by probing NNPC, CBN, NPA and Customs and he also jailed many “failed bank” managers. Under Obasanjo, EFCC also rounded up many corrupt persons.  Now Buhari is doing it all over again and the stolen sums are only getting bigger. This method of fighting corruption is not working.
That top Nigerian public officers have since kicked the 10% kickback habit reminds me of the story of two Latin American Finance Ministers who decided to exchange visits. One Finance Minister visited the other in his country, marvelled at his host’s mansion and asked him how he got the money. The host said, “Remember the airport you came through? Ten percent of that.” A year later this Finance Minister returned the visit and saw that his friend had built a mansion even bigger than his. He asked him the secret and the host said, “Did you see a flyover bridge on your way here?” The visitor said he did not see any bridge. His host smiled and said, “One hundred percent!”