I
had a few sleepless nights last week. It had nothing to do with the searing
heat in the country or the epileptic power supply by Nigeria’s eternally dysfunctional
electricity company. My discomfiture had to do with the report about the heist
at the Nigerian Air Force. The dizzying allegations of sustained robbery by the
officers in charge, though not completely surprising, left me breathless. I ruminated
on the trial of Alex Badeh. I reflected on the figures, did the math, and was
driven to despair.
I
then asked myself the same question I asked a few years ago while researching grand
corruption in Nigeria and the looting of the Nigeria Police Force by an ex-Inspector
General of Police, Tafa Balogun. From all accounts, Mr. Balogun was a pathological
criminal who rose to become the chief law officer of Nigeria. By the time he was
forced to retire in January 2015, he had stolen billions of naira belonging to
the Nigeria Police in what would go down as the most barefaced stealing spree
by a public officer in Nigeria. The question I posed was: what kind of country or
system makes it possible for public officers to loot their establishments so
easily, ceaselessly and shamelessly? To understand the Badeh and Balogun syndrome,
this is the question every sane Nigerian ought to be asking. I shall return to
this.
Alex
Sabundu Badeh, 58, until his
retirement last year was a four-star flag officer of the Nigerian Air Force who
served as the 18th Chief of Air Staff (October 4th, 2012 – January 16th, 2014),
the 15th Chief of Defence Staff of the Armed Forces of Nigeria (January 16,
2014 to July 13, 2015), and Commander of the Presidential Fleet during Olusegun
Obasanjo's presidency, according to a Wikipedia entry. He was born in Vimtim (a
town sacked by Boko Haram in October 2014) in Mubi Local Government Area of
Adamawa State, North East Nigeria, into a family of peasant farmers.
Fast
forward to Wednesday, March 16, 2016. The
trial of Badeh began at a Federal High Court in Abuja where we were told that
as Chief of Air Staff, Badeh made N558.2 million ($2.8 million at the official
exchange rate of N197 to a dollar) monthly from the salary account of the
Nigerian Air Force (NAF), an account we were informed predated Badeh’s tenure. N558.2
multiplied by the 15 months that the diversion lasted (between September 2012
and December 2013) comes to N8.3 billion. We know that not all of that money went
to Badeh. He had to settle the boys, perhaps going as high as the ministry of
defence and the budget office of the federal government! But whatever the balance,
as Chief of Air Staff, Badeh was a stupendously rich man. I don’t know any
business, not even that run by Bill Gates or Warren Buffet that boasts of that
kind of return on investment in 15 months.
Badeh’s loot, we understand, was the leftover after salaries and
allowances of workers from NAF had been defrayed from the N4 billion received
monthly and it was conveniently earmarked “for
general administration for the office of the Chief of Air Staff”. And he
administered it in the interest of the Badeh clan. Badeh bought a
retirement home for N1.1 billion, a deserving prize for his trouble in ending
the war against Boko Haram. He bought a commercial plot of land for N650
million and paid N878 million for the construction of a shopping mall and another
N304 million to complete the mall. When his sons wanted to own houses, he bought
a house worth N260 million for his first son, renovated it with N60 million and
furnished it with N90 million. And when his second son turned down a house
worth N340 million, he ordered that a second house be bought for N330 million
to compensate for the indiscretion of his man Friday.
“The amount in most cases was usually converted into US dollars by
the Finance Officer at Nigerian Air Force Headquarters, Abuja. Thereafter, it
is brought to the Director of Finance who in turn takes it to the Air House
which is the official residence of Chief of Air Staff at the Niger Barracks,” revealed a prosecution witness,
Air Commodore Aliyu Yishau (retd.), who said he served as former Director of
Finance and Account of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF). You still wonder why the country has a foreign exchange crisis.
Badeh obviously had no business being in the Nigerian Air Force or
building a career as a pilot trained at the expense of Nigerian tax payers. But
this is Nigeria, a country of anything goes, where perverse actions perpetually
multiply and endure as instruments of governance. Badeh, of course, is not
alone. The man who succeeded him as Chief (Thief?) of Air Staff, Adesola
Nunayon Amosu, a retired Air Vice Marshal, has been indicted in the arms procurement
scandal during his tenure. One of the criminal deals involved the procurement
of two second-hand Mi-24V helicopters instead of the recommended Mi-35M series
at a cost of $136.9 million. The second-hand helicopters were allegedly not
operationally airworthy at the time of delivery while a brand new unit of the
same helicopters costs about $30 million. On November 13, 2014, two officers were
killed when the Air Force chief allegedly pressured them into flying one of the
unserviceable helicopters which crashed in the North-east region.
According
to reports, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has seized
houses and other properties belonging to Amosu, Air Vice Marshal J.B. Adigun, the
immediate past Chief of Accounts and Budgeting of the Nigerian Air Force, and
Air Commodore O. O. Gbadebo, who was the Director of Finance and Budget at NAF.
When Amosu’s wife, Mrs. Omolara Amosu, was arrested by EFCC operatives, the sum
of N3 billion was allegedly traced to her bank accounts. She has voluntarily
returned N381 million in three tranches of N180m, N101m, and N100m.
Amosu’s
putative boss, ex-National Security Adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki
(retd), alongside Shuaibu Salisu, a former Director of Finance and
Administration, Office of the National Security Adviser, Aminu Babakusa, a
former General Manager, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Acacia
Holdings Limited, and Reliance Referral Hospital Limited, is currently being
prosecuted by the EFCC on a 19-count charge bordering on money laundering and
criminal breach of trust to the tune of N13.5 billion. A committee set up to investigate Dasuki’s office indicted
more than 300 companies and individuals, including serving and retired military
officers. In one case, the committee found out that a company, Societe
D’Equipment International, was overpaid to the tune of €7.9
million and $7.09 million.
True to form, the trial of Dasuki could not continue last week
because he refused to show up in court. But he doesn’t have to. The important
thing is for the trial to go on and if he is found guilty, bundled to jail. I
am reliably
informed that the rot in the military is far worse than what we have experienced
with our politicians. And that is saying a lot considering the criminal
proclivities of Nigerian politicians. We have seen a bit of the rot in the Air
Force. We await the revelations from the Army and the Navy.
If
you want to understand why Nigeria is not working, why we are a fourth rate
nation, look no further than the Dasukis, Badehs, and Amosus of Nigeria, their compatriots
in agbada (the grand boubou) and their partners in wigs. People
like our billionaire judges, like Olisah Metuh, Stella Oduah, and Bukola
Saraki, the Teflon President of the Nigerian Senate who is currently standing
trial for false asset declaration and for repaying his personal loans with
state fund.
There are others like Ikedi Ohakim who as governor of Imo State
paid $2.29 million cash for a property in Abuja, Ahmed Sani Yerima, Mohammed
Danjuma Goje, Abdullahi Adamu, George Akume, and Josuah Dariye – executive
scoundrels who have found refuge in one of the most disreputable institutions
in Nigeria – the Senate. Not even the colonial masters could have damaged this
country the way these men and women who claim to be Nigerians have done.
Indeed, it’s a safe bet that the legendary unfeeling colonial chieftain, Lord
Lugard, will weep no end if he were to return to the house he built in 1914.
Clearly,
these thieving individuals like their alter ego, the fiendish late military
dictator, Sani Abacha, have no concept of a nation of people. Their moral universe
is limited to family and friends. That is why their politics, to paraphrase radical
scholar and activist, late Prof Eskor Toyo, is reduced to a grabbing game, a
cake sharing contest. So, for example, while Abacha was head of state,
pretending to love Nigeria and working to uphold her honour and glory, he, his family,
and accomplices were busy looting the country and stashing the loot where their
hearts were: Switzerland, Liechtenstein, etc. In just one instance, in December
1999, the Swiss government announced the freezing of $550 million in different
banks belonging to Abacha and his family, former National Security Adviser
Ismaila Gwarzo, and Abubakar Atiku Bagudu (current Governor of Kebbi State). It
is simply impossible to know exactly how much Abacha and those around him stole
from Nigeria in the five years of his tyrannical rule.
There
are many Abachas, Dasukis, Badehs, Amosus and Sarakis in the system, people who
“pledge to Nigeria my country, to be faithful, loyal and honest”, yet they will
steal from the same country at every opportunity. But why are millions of
Nigerians who bear the brunt of the licentiousness of our thieving public officers
not outraged? There is no outrage because most of us will behave the same way
if we found ourselves in the shoes of Abacha, Dasuki, Badeh, Amosu or Saraki.
And
the reason is simple: “Much of what passes for corruption is not
simply a matter of greed but rather the byproduct of legislators or public
officials who feel more obligated to family, tribe, religion or ethnic group
than to the national community and therefore divert money in that direction.”
That was Francis Fukuyama writing about the relationship between nation
building and state building in his book, Political
Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization
of Democracy. These bandits
in uniform and agbada, according to Fukuyama, “are not necessarily
immoral people, but their circle of moral obligation is smaller than that of
the polity for which they work”.
Savagery rears
its head when we believe something that belongs to us is stolen, when anyone
comes into our small circle of moral obligation. So, somewhere in Aluu, Rivers
State, four undergraduates are lynched and burnt by mortally offended fellow citizens
for allegedly stealing laptops and cell phones; somewhere in Lagos a woman is beaten
and sexually assaulted by an incredulous and bloodthirsty mob for stealing pepper;
in Ondo State, a man is mercilessly bludgeoned to death by “irritated angry
youth” for being gay; and somewhere in Kano, a man is set free after more than
two decades in prison for allegedly stealing a transistor radio. Yet each time Dasuki,
Badeh, or Saraki appears in court, oozing splendor, they are not tailed by
“ordinary” Nigerians mocking and jeering but by a throng of well-heeled
lawyers, friends, associates, and family members. These high-profile supporters
know that it is not only Dasuki, Badeh, or Saraki that is on trial.
What
they seem to be saying is, “That is the way the system works. Only a fool would
want to be law abiding in a patently lawless society.” So, Dasuki, Badeh,
Saraki, and company, can sleep comfortably at night knowing full well that
there is a chance that in the end they will be free to enjoy their loot. As a
people, we have imbibed the dictum that when evil is commonplace it becomes a
tradition. That is the case with corruption in Nigeria. Corruption is a
national tradition. It has been with us since independence, got worse through
many military regimes and became a directive principle of state policy in 1999
when the military again foisted one of their own, Olusegun Obasanjo, that
exemplar of everything wrong with Nigeria, on a hapless nation.
It
is for this reason that these indicted public officers, rather than going to
court to prove their innocence, shout “persecution” and “political witch-hunt” at
every opportunity. You can’t really blame them! Why should they be punished for
upholding tradition? It is for the same reason that we have not heard a word from
the military high command or from retired military officers, including ex-heads
of state, on the revelations about our military.
Knowing
how powerful the thieving class is in Nigeria, President Buhari should be praised
– I can’t think of any politician who would have done this – for his courage
and political will. Of course, the issue goes beyond President Buhari to the
question posed at the beginning of this essay. As long as Nigeria remains the
way it is, public office will be nothing but sinecure for self-serving
individuals.
We
need to create a country where there is no incentive for Nigerians to steal from
Nigeria. No sane person steals from himself. When people feel ownership of this
country, we won’t see the high incidence of wanton pillage of public fund currently
going on at all levels and in all sectors.
In
the interim, let Nigerians who suffer the effect of corruption pick up the
gauntlet and act. After all, the enfant
terrible of Rivers State and now Honourable
(emphasis mine) Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi
Amaechi, once remarked publicly that he and other thieving politicians get away
with murder because Nigerians have not risen to defend their patrimony by stoning
those who gratuitously steal from them.
This
piece is an excerpt from an upcoming book: We are all Biafrans – A Participant-Observer’s
Interventions in a Country Sleeping Walking to Disaster.
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