The Matter Of Our Looted Treasury: What Has Been Done About It? 

by 

Hilary Evbayiro 

This is an indirect, but complimentary, rejoinder to Chike E. Okafor's article, "Looting of Nigeria's treasury: Who else is involved besides Abacha's familty?",  Although it is designed to proffer clues to the multi-million dollar question raised, the objective here is to redirect the question to the President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, with the aim of prodding him into doing something about our looted treasury before it is too late. It is also to help jog his memory and aid his understanding of the people involved in the mindless looting of our dear country. My revised definition of "looters" below is also to help redirect our focus on the matter and remind every conscientious and right-thinking Nigerian that the issue of our looted funds must not be overlooked or easily forgotten.

The large-scale looting of our treasury, which Nigerians experienced during the regimes of the dubious Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) and the demented Sani Abacha, is a serious significant occurrence in the history of our country. It is an event so bad that it deserves the harshest condemnation for its unparalleled and unprecedented nature. Our President, in his pusillanimity and disservice to the people of Nigeria, has still not deemed it a worthy endeavor to look seriously into the matter. Instead, he has continued to pursue the Abachas with a vindictive passion and blazing intensity, as though the Abachas are the only ones who stole from Nigeria. Our President cannot deny knowledge of those who perpetrated such heinous crime of satanic grandeur against the people of Nigeria. He is very much aware of and knows those who looted Nigeria into the miserable condition we are in today. Every Nigerian, including our President, is aware and knows those who committed economic crimes against our country, but the sad truth is our President is afraid and unreasonably cautious to do whatever is necessary to recover our looted funds and allow the law to met condign punishments to the perpetrators.

It is common knowledge to all and sundry that our President has benefited, in no small measure, from the looters' spoils. After all, he became President after using part of what was looted from the Nigerian people. The world witnessed how IBB publicly declared last year that he bankrolled the presidential election campaign of Olusegun Obasanjo to the tune of eight hundred million naira. To lend credence and attestation to his accusation, or should I say public claim, IBB declared, "go and ask Annenih." Hitherto, our President has not said anything in return. Instead, he has suspiciously and culpably remained reticent, without offering anything by way of serious or slight refutation of the claim or accusation. Does the silent admission, if that is what his taciturnity in the matter suggests, not make him a beneficiary of our looted funds, even though most people are forced to believe his saintliness? The issue one must grapple with now is whether IBB lied or our President is not completely truthful with the people of Nigeria. If the President did receive the money from IBB, was he in anywise concerned about how and where IBB got the money to just give away like that? Is this not the sole reason our President has been dragging his feet against a sweeping loot-recovery effort and vigorous prosecution of the perpetrators?

Although indications abound about those who looted Nigeria into the depth of economic collapse, our President has concentrated all his efforts and our resources on only the Abachas and their trusted cohorts in what now appears to be a personal vendetta against that family for Obasanjo's incarceration and treatment in Abacha gulag. As unreasonable as it sounds, it is every bit inscrutable that our President has decided to avoid seeking redress against those who committed such untold looting of our treasury. The matter of our looted funds is a thing that cannot be easily forgotten. At least, not so soon, if that is what the Federal Government is wishing. The reason our President is refusing to go after those who did Nigeria in must be told and understood. Maybe it is because those who looted us know something about him that he does not want the Nigerian people to know. What is there to be revealed about Olusegun Obasanjo that Nigerians do not already know? Most people know that his hands have not been thoroughly washed. Nigerians have not forgotten, as it is still very fresh in everyone's memory, that Olusegun Obasanjo was supremely implicated in the three trillion naira (1980 value) oil revenue misery during his military government. We have not forgotten too that his complicity in that particular scandal has not been explained, though he was proclaimed, in an obvious cover-up, an institution too great to face a panel or tribunal that was set up to investigate the matter during the second republic.

It has become abundantly clear that Obasanjo is not the man to sweep Nigerian clean. Corruption continues to flourish and those riffraffs who looted us into economic anguish continue to flaunt their booty publicly, yet our President continues to look at the other way in an apparent resolve to avoid squaring off with the "biggies" in the looting of Nigeria. While it seems impossible to have our President to do what he is averse to about our looted funds, it is fair to recognize that only the extremely stouthearted individual can go after some of the big fishes in the matter of the Nigerian loots, especially when the big fishes are alive and dreadfully influential. Abacha is dead and dead for good. Everyone knows very well that dead men cannot bite nor fight back. This very fact explains why the Federal Government has been all over the Abachas like a feasting fly on a dead animal. There is no way in hell Obasanjo can say the Abachas are the only ones who looted us. The other people who looted us are walking around flaunting our stolen money, and instead of our President to go after them, he has chosen to look the other way, only to continue in his vengeful persecution of the Abachas.

Most Nigerians are aware of those who looted Nigeria into an unfathomable abyss of unimaginable ruin, yet our President continues to play games at the excruciating expense of millions of Nigerians who entrusted him with their votes. If he is still saying that he does not know the people who looted Nigeria, perhaps the following clues will dulcify his doubts and help him understands the obvious identity of the looters in our society, with the ultimate goal of galvanizing him toward taking some drastic measures against the people who visited our country with economic crimes. The following pointers may be used in determining whether a person is a looter.

· Anyone who ruled or helped ruled Nigeria and became sumptuously rich, against the overwhelming justification of what the salary and remuneration of the position could reasonably support, the person is a looter.

· Anyone who was a Nigerian military officer and who has millions of pounds or dollars stacked up in foreign banks, against the overwhelming justification of what the salary and remuneration of the position could reasonably support, the person is a looter.

· Anyone who is seen as a successful businessperson but has no viable manufacturing or service-producing firm anywhere, yet has billions or millions of pounds or dollars hidden in foreign bank accounts, the person is a looter.

· Anyone who worked for a local, state, or federal government of Nigeria, and as a result of the job, the individual has become costly rich, against the overwhelming justification of what the salary and remuneration of the position could reasonably support, the person is a looter.

· Anyone who held a political position or appointment, and as a result of the position or appointment, the person became suspiciously wealthy, against the overwhelming justification of what the salary and remuneration of the position could reasonably support, the person is a looter.

· Anyone who did any contracting work for any government in Nigeria, and as a result of the contract, the person became an instant millionaire without actually doing or performing as required, the person is a looter.

· Anyone who was or is still a government employee and owns more than what the salary and remuneration of the job can provide or acquire, the person is a looter.

Albeit it may be difficult to point out the looters in our midst and prosecute them, the stunning thing is that the people who carried out the flagitious act against Nigeria did not come from Jupiter or Saturn. The people live in Nigeria, and most of them are our politicians of today who abetted the successive military governments to destroy our country. Some of them have now become lawmakers, ministers, governors, or whatever position they have acquired with our stolen money. What is more, some of the retired military officers served our country dishonorably and must answer some questions about the looting and destruction of Nigeria. This unpatriotic group of people, the epitome of improbity and dishonesty, are the ones who had more than adequate opportunity and time to make Nigeria one of the most economically viable and prosperous nations on earth, but they blew everything out of sheer greed and selfishness, attending to only their individual pockets at the agonizing expense of the Nigerian masses. These same people are the ones trying to rule us again and again. Nigerians must be the most gullible people on earth to trust or have faith in these corrupt men of dishonorable characters and putrefied integrity. By every account, these men do not have any moral justification to even think or nurse active participation in the affairs of Nigeria ever again, considering the untold suffering and opprobrium they have caused us.

Instead of our President's going after the looters, he has been dilly-dallying about doing what is proper and just in the matter of our looted funds. Nigerians have had enough of and are tired of this one step forward and two steps backward style of the Federal Government of Obasanjo, which appears to be playing games when it comes to the issue of the recovery of our looted wealth. Our President must, as a matter of exigency and sincere service to the people, rethink his commitment to and take a painstaking look at the plight and condition of Nigerians caused by looting. He needs to take a deeper look at the destruction of Nigeria, with the hope that he will muster the right kind of courage to embark on a recovery effort and bring those who participated, one way or the other, in the unprecedented looting to book. Our President cannot continue to overlook the looting of our treasury. He must bring up the matter for Nigerians to judge. He must do so for our posterity, while we continue to gnash our teeth and reflect upon the future of a united, peaceful Nigeria with shaky hope and subdued optimism.

Hilary Evbayiro