Tag: unlimited

IF there is anything amusingly enthralling about Nigeria’s strategic fight against corruption, it is its endless dramatics and outlandish vacuity. Where you had expected that corruption, whoever that is, would suffer a bloodied nose from the hard jabs unleashed from the ferocious angst of the anti-corruption bodies, what you get is a medley of rambunctious dalliances between the two strange bedfellows.

Though troubling, nothing suggests that this reality is about fizzling out that soon. In fact, the corrupt elements within the system have grown with such dizzying monstrosity that it is becoming increasingly clear that the feeble efforts being made to quell it may soon be suffocated under its weight. Of course, the consequences of such a possibility should not be lost to those who truly desire to see a promising country formed out of this rubble of underdevelopment.

For that to happen, it would take more than this theatre of the absurd playing out right before our very eyes between Ibrahim Magu’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the National Intelligence Agency.

Now, what are the facts on the ground? I assume they are quite simple. The EFCC, as follow up to the unbelievable bounty it has been harvesting in raw cash after a tip off, raided a residential apartment in Ikoyi where the high and mighty lives a life of exquisite splendour. In just one apartment, it hauled in a whopping N13 billion in various denominations, including freshly-minted notes of $1000 bills totaling $43m; 27,000 British pounds sterling and N23m.

Not one to conceal such great discovery, the agency released video and photographic details of the operation to the general public but was loudly silent in offering the slightest hint about the tenant or owner of the particular apartment that was raided. It left that aspect of this critical matter hanging and it did not take long before the ever vibrant, ever inquisitive, ever speculative and often mischievous Nigerian league of social media bloggers started listing names of likely owners of the money.

First, Apartment 7B, Osborne Towers, was linked to a former chairman of the sinking Peoples Democratic Party, Ahmed Mu’azu who developed the Osborne Towers property. In less than two hours, the speculation was rife that the billions actually belonged to Mrs. Esther Ogbue, the retired Managing Director with a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation who was under the radar of the EFCC over some alleged shady deals running into billions of naira.

She was said to be a tenant in the N20m per annum apartment towers. In fact, keen watchers of the development were almost pinning the cash haul on Ogbue as the EFCC chose that day, of all days, to re-arrest her for interrogation a few hours after the NNPC announced her retirement from service.

But that was just the beginning of the suspense-filled plot as “detective” Femi Fani-Kayode twitted, with definitive gusto, that a serving Minister in the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, was not only the owner of the apartment in which the money was found, but also owned the huge currencies found in the vaults in two of the four-bedroom builtfor- the-rich home.

But before Amaechi could come up with a denial of ownership like Ogbue vehemently did through her lawyers, a shocking twist was added to the sickening tale of an orphaned billions of cash. The nation’s prestigious spy body, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), surreptitiously (some would say Nicodemously) laid claim to the ownership of the money through a United States of America-based online media, The Will, which quoted several sources in The Presidency conversant with the matter.

In specific terms, the medium said the Director General of the agency, Ayodele Oke, had already briefed the powers that be that Magu overstepped his boundary by invading one of the agency’s “safe houses” in which money meant for “covert operations” as approved by former President Goodluck Jonathan’ were safely kept. On a serious note, I had thought this was a rude joke and that Oke’s office would come out with a strongly-worded statement, denying any link with such a scandal.

But I was dead wrong. Even when the Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike, had quickly demanded that the money be returned to the state as it was part of the money allegedly siphoned by Amaechi in a gas deal with a private oil firm, the NIA angle simply refused to leave the front pages for the other clowns to have their day. It was that pathetic.

Today, some ten days after the humongous funds had been deposited at the Central Bank of Nigeria following a temporary forfeiture order issued by a court in Lagos, the country is still on a cliffhanger regarding the true owner or owners of the money. The EFCC, which announced the raid with pomp and panache, has suddenly lost its tongue.

Now, it dribbles round and about the issue. Instead of unveiling the face behind the mask as it has done for ages in cases involving petty thieves and Internet fraudsters, the EFCC has wasted ten days in huffing and puffing while watering the flowers of speculation to bloom to its full allure. Surely, something is wrong with this dangerous game going on among these political heavyweights.

Personally, I feel some deep sense of revulsion when I flip through the diversionary tactics being adopted by the EFCC presumably to close the chapter on this huge mess it has walked into with its eyes opened. For all the questions that have been raised on the cash haul, the EFCC has simply delved into reverie of wild goose chase.

First, it threatened to search all apartments in the towers forgetting that those who reside there do have rights to their privacy like every other hardworking citizen. Second, its operatives combed the apartment of former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, who was out of the country. His sin, I assume, must be that of living in a building where one of the apartments housed billions of unclaimed cash! But that is beside the point. I’m not sure the EFCC or whosoever was responsible for leaking the names of the tenants of Osborne Towers knows the magnitude of the collateral damage being inflicted on the reputation of some notable Nigerians on that list.

If what was published was to be believed, then you cannot help but wonder what the correlation was between the money discovered in one out of many apartments and the frenetic pace with which the EFCC moved into other people’s private homes within the premises. Does the EFCC now works from the answer to the question? Is it right to lump all the tenants together as a bunch of thieving elite simply because no one has stepped forward to claim the money?

Does it mean that those highlyrevered names of tested bankers and successful business moguls who never stepped into any political office cannot be trusted to have made clean money just because they live in a building considered safe enough by the NIA to keep its “operational” billions? With no pun intended, I find it curiously laughable that Sahara Reporters claimed that the guards in the premises had nicknamed Apartment 7B where the cash was found as “Apartment Dash Dash.” Reason? Well, they said those who rented the apartment had simply ignored some details that were requested on the application form for intending tenants of the building by inserting the dash mark.

And who could this tenant be? Sahara Reporters scooped that it was no other outfit than Chobe Ventures Limited, under the control of Mrs Folashade Oke, wife of DG, NIA. No, don’t get it twisted. It would be unfair to assume that Mrs. Oke was the same “haggard-looking” but smooth skinned lady that the EFCC said the whistleblower identified as sneaking in occasionally with heavy Ghana-Must-Go bags to deposit dollars, pounds and naira notes in the vaults in the controversial apartment.

We would also be jumping the gun to conclude that this Mrs. Oke is the legally married wife of the now suspended DG of NIA since there are many Okes in different states in the South West. It is equally not impossible that the orphaned money could actually belong to the NIA whose “operational responsibilities” were usually of serious national importance that keeping such heavy cash in the unsafe vaults of the CBN could jeopardise the entire exercise which could have dire consequences for us all.

Have you also imagined that in a country where nothing is impossible, the money could have been planted by Magu and his boys with the aim of boosting an image that has been deflated by the Senate’s refusal to confirm his appointment as the substantive chairman of the EFCC due to a presumed failure of the integrity test? Have you? Or don’t you know a desperate man is a dangerous man? My conclusion?

Those who think there is more than meets the eyes on this matter are only displaying their ignorance. In fact, they are suffering from poverty mentality because they have not witnessed the generosity of the stupidly rich. Where were they when Ribadu squealed that a then serving governor in the South-South “dashed” him $15m cash to “bury” an investigative report on corruption that indicted the big man? Did Ribadu not display the money and hand it over to the CBN? Where were they when the Federal Government claimed to have recovered billions of dollars the late General Sani Abacha ferried to different safe havens across the globe? And didn’t General Ishaya Bamaiyi educate us that the funds were actually kept in trust for us?

Where were they when a former big Oga in the NNPC tagged millions of dollars found hidden in a decrepit village house as “gifts” (dash) by friends when he was in charge of affairs? And where were they when nobody stepped forward to claim the money “recovered” in a Bureau de Change and another warehouse in Lagos?

Did anyone accuse the EFCC of shielding the corrupt then? So, why are we fretting over the ownership of common N13 billion cash when investigations are still ongoing with the lightning speed of a snail? Why? See, if you ask me, I think we are just a bunch of impatient people. We are always in a hurry to unravel the facts when what is expected of us, as patriots, is to grab a front row seat and get set to watch the next box office thriller titled “Dash & Dash Incorporatedng Unlimited—the sickening tale of a country in search of conscience.”

Please, pass me the big bag of popcorn before the light dims for the première of the next Awada Kerikeri. Let’s wipe the tears with teardrops of humour!