Those who swindled the country must not go unpunished
Nigerians may not yet know those involved in the messy $2billion arms deals that have dominated the country’s media in the last few days. But they know that a lot of money meant to purchase arms and ammunition for the Nigerian Armed Forces ended up in private pockets in the better-forgotten, yet difficult to forget Goodluck Jonathan years. Budget allocations to security/defence, especially in the Jonathan era, is enough evidence of what was sunk into these areas, sadly, without result. In 2008, we spent N444.6 billion on security; 2009: N233 billion; 2010: N264billion; these were Umaru Yar’Adua years. In 2011, after former President Jonathan had taken over, we committed N348 billion to security; 2012: N921.91 billion; 2013: N1.055 trillion. It fell to N968 billion in 2014, about 20 percent of the year’s N4.962 trillion budget.
These were budgetary allocations alone. But, going by revelations now coming up after the arrest of former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.), and others suspected of involvement in the arms scam, it is getting clearer that the Jonathan government went beyond budgetary provisions in disbursing funds to the Office of the NSA, ostensibly for security purposes. Former finance minister and coordinating minister for the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said she also gave $322m to Col. Dasuki from the loot recovered from the Late General Sani Abacha. In her words, “the NSA made a case for using the returned funds for urgent security operations since, he noted, there cannot be any development without peace and security”.
These defence disbursements have many mindboggling dimensions. One, we did not have value for the money. And no one would have expected that a country at war with the dangerous Boko Haram sect would have been so inhumanly raped by those who were supposed to ensure its wellbeing. There is also the dangerous implication for our armed forces whose men and officers were ordered to confront the murderous Boko Haram gangsters, literally with bare fists.
Perhaps we need some statistics to drive the points vividly home. Boko Haram insurgents have killed more than 20,000 people since their insurrection began in 2009 and displaced more than 2.3 million from their homes. Indeed, the insurgents had wreaked havoc that would take decades to reverse, particularly in the north-eastern part of the country where their activities have been most pronounced. The group has carried out mass abductions, including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, in April 2014. Some of them have returned; others remain at large.
All these explain the joy across the land when officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) began to arrest suspects in connection with the $2billion arms deals. Others that are now having their day in court with the former NSA are former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa of Sokoto State who allegedly collected N100million cash from Dasuki; Emeritus Chairman of Africa Independent Television (AIT), Chief Raymond Dokpesi, said to have collected N2.1billion from Dasuki’s office. The EFCC has also launched a manhunt for a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mohammed Haliru Bello, in connection with some diverted arms cash. One of the suspects in the EFCC’s custody is said to have refunded N200million and has pleaded for bail to refund about N1billion credited to him as diverted funds.
One good thing about what is happening is that hitherto untouchables are now being touched. That is the way it should be; the law should be no respecter of persons – soldiers, governors, ministers, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, media owners, even former presidents! Although the case proper is yet to start, we are already being treated to melodious songs; some people are singing like canaries already. I can’t wait to hear more melodious tunes from the big people that would sing – treble, tenor alto, bass – from the witness box in the coming harvest of songs that would make the Apostolic Faith Church Annual Musical Concert a child’s play!
But Nigerians should rejoice that they did not allow their military to commit serial senseless murders in the name of punishing soldiers for mutiny because it would have been disastrous if we are now hearing what happened after those innocent soldiers had been killed. Yet, the then Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh, endorsed the summary trials and execution of the soldiers and officers who deserted the war front because they did not want to commit suicide that the Nigerian authorities wanted them to commit. Regrettably, Badeh was quoted to have said: “In fact, may be you will now push us to go and start doing field court-martial in the bush. We try them, in five minutes we would have finished the trial, kill them, bury them and we go on with the fight,” Badeh said in reaction to the barrage of criticisms that trailed the sentencing of 12 soldiers to death for alleged mutiny and other military offences. Now, the question is: Do you confront bandits who have superior weapons with bare hands? Only God knows how many soldiers and officers had gone the Badeh way in the military era over coups, real or phantom.
This was simply the height of man’s inhumanity to man. The same Marshal Badeh it was who testified that he headed a military that lacked equipment, when he was handing over to his successor, Major-General Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin in Abuja, following his well deserved sack alongside other military chiefs by President Muhammadu Buhari on July 13. “The task of coordinating the military and other security agencies in the fight against the insurgents is perhaps the most complex and challenging assignment I have had in my over 38 years in service. For the first time, I was head of a military that lacked the relevant equipment and motivation to fight an enemy that was invisible and embedded with the local populace”, Badeh said at the occasion.
Now, if Badeh knew his troops did not have equipment, why approve the killing of soldiers who refused to make themselves available for suicide? Perhaps it did not occur to him and his colleagues that these soldiers are somebody’s children; somebody’s husbands; somebody’s fathers, some people’s breadwinners, etc. Again, was the former chief of defence staff not aware of the billions that had been budgeted for the same military to buy arms and ammunition? What happened to the billions and why would the military still be left without weapons and motivation, as confirmed by even the United States Director of the African Centre at Atlantic Council in Washington DC, Dr. Peter Pham?
If security is a function of huge budgetary and extra-budgetary allocations, then Nigeria should be one of the most secured countries on earth, given the stupendous amounts that security has swallowed in the country’s budgets in the last three years in particular. That this is not so is depressing enough. The matter is worsened by the ungodly manner the military authorities handled it. Indeed, I am beginning to be convinced that God would have to create special courts for Nigeria on the Day of Judgment. He would need more than the required number of angels for (the same) security reasons so that our big men who know all the tricks to evade judgment after committing crimes would not play a fast one on His angels. Those who say the furnace in hell would be reinforced seven times more than usual on that great day must have had Nigeria in mind. Very soon, some of the big suspects would start having strange ailments and they would be asking the courts to let them travel abroad for treatment. But the courts should be vigilant.
Part of the beauty of the arms deals case is that it would check impunity on the part of public officials and their collaborators. Those close to the seat of power did so many things with impunity even so that the blind would see, especially in the immediate past. President Jonathan would need all the angels swearing on his behalf that truly, he was not aware of these monumental scams because, in terms of whistle blowing, he had a surfeit of it; but, rather than do something, he was busy distinguishing between stealing and corruption.
The EFCC should cast the net even wider to get in all the others who might have partaken in the sharing of the arms funds. No one needs to remind President Buhari (as a general) that the scam is beyond fighting corruption. It has implications for loyalty, professionalism and cohesion in the military. It has implications for national security. It has gone beyond being swept under the carpet.
