TheCable

BY OLUYINKA ADEKAMBI

Every day in the news, billions and billions and more billions of naira are bandied around as monies embezzled – often said to have been “diverted”, a weaker moniker for “stolen”– by several top government officials. Gone are the days when the bandwidth of theft was in the regions that calculators could manage without getting a “migraine”. These days, the theft is so roof-shattering that they have sky-rocketed from millions of naira into billions of dollars – even computers tend to shut down, in protest.

In these days when corruption, fund diversion, or plain theft has become so recurring, the average Nigerian is either too alarmed to react or they actually react and (almost) get a heart attack. The analytic Nigerian spirit doesn’t even seem to help matters too much, especially with its tendency to analysis in error. In whichever direction our arguments go, however, there is a constant: we have been plundered dry – both when we had numerous resources at our beck and call, and when they began to thin out—and it has been to our utmost disadvantage as a nation.

Currently, more than eleven senior officers of the Nigerian military are being probed by the EFCC as part of the $2.1bn Dasuki arms scam, especially in relation to the 10 contracts of the NAF, said to be worth $930,500,690.00. As at Tuesday 20th April 2016, the EFCC had recovered at least N4bn in cash and assets from the immediate past Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu (retd.).

In one of the cases, the leadership of the Navy, specifically the office of the Chief of Air Staff, was alleged to have, in the least, since 2012 been diverting N1.7 billion to themselves monthly. After N2.3 billion of the monthly allocation of N4 billion had been used to settle salaries and allowances of personnel of the Nigerian Air Force, the balance of N1.7 billion was consistently used for the “servicing of the office of the Chief of Air Staff.”  Of the said balance of N1.7 billion, N558 million was converted to dollars and taken to the official residence of Air Marshal Alex Badeh (rtd), ex-Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). Sadly, Badeh was not the first to enjoy this “perk” of office – because it had really been institutionalised. It even had an official tag, “General Administration of the Chief of Air Staff.” These revelations were made by a former Director of Finance, Nigerian Air Force, Air Commodore Abdullahi Yushau, at the court hearing of Air Marshal Alex Badeh (rtd).

This throws up a lot of questions, some of which are: of the entire sum of N1.7 billion balance from the N4 billion, only N558 million was said to have been “allocated” to the office of the Chief of Naval Staff; what about the balance of more than N1 billion? Of what “official” use was it? N558 million is the amount that is allegedly the official entitlement of the Office of the Air Force, how about the unofficial amounts that he and other top-ranking officers of the military may have gotten outside the monthly allocation for salaries and allowances? Also, it has been alleged that Alex Badeh was not a signatory to the accounts of Nigerian Air Force, yet he oversaw all their accounts and got so much officially (and may have got much more unofficially), what if he was a signatory to the account? How much would he have got? How about other officials of government who were signatories to the accounts of different government account operated before the implementation of the Treasury Single Account? A serving official of government, like several others like him, consistently converted millions of our national currency into dollars, thereby putting pressure on our currency; what systems have been put in place to ensure that this ugly trend ceases? There are yet more questions…

On all media platforms, one of the loudest calls by conscientised, well-meaning Nigerians is for the institutionalisation of democratic values and all that will move us forward as a nation. In the sight of these progressives that have harped this call for years unending, little or nothing has been done, hence Nigeria has only succeeded in building, in few cases, strong men, instead of strong institutions. Hence, in our annals as a nation, policy summersault is a norm – no previous government policy is really ever good enough for any incumbent.

But little did those activists know – top decision-makers in the country had already started institutionalising something: corruption, which has no gender, religion or culture-bias. It is an “institution” that has brought out the worst even in the supposedly better lot. It has not exempted the top echelon of the Nigerian military, which ideally should be the most disciplined organ of any society. That this level of decadence could have gained so much ground in the Nigerian military only illustrates how deep-rooted this decadence has gone into the Nigerian society.

Stories about official, institutionalised corruption in the military – using the Nigerian Air Force as a case study – are among the inspirations for the initiation and implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy, which could safely be said to be the sole achievement of the Mohammadu Buhari-led administration so far. In the pre-TSA era, the Nigerian Air Force, like several parastatals of government, had several accounts into which public funds were deposited and from which withdrawals were made for different purposes.  Only the top hierarchy of each organisation could really tell how things worked, ie who took what amount of money and to what purpose it was used. Accountability and transparency was next to being non-existent. Government officials profiteered from public resources. Several hidden accounts were operated. Cash was withdrawn, converted into other currency, and laundered, by the second! And Nigeria daily hit a new low and the economy was badly hit.

And the people, the poor Nigerian on the street, continue to suffer. They, for whom life has never been good, continued to get the bad end of the stick. They are homeless, jobless, hungry, penniless, hopeless, hapless. But those who stole them blind continued to acquire luxury which no one lives in, at mind-boggling prices; they continued to fatten their belies and paid so much to lose those fat; they continued to upgrade their deviousness.

In this era of Treasury Single Account (TSA), government has only one account and a few sub-accounts all linked and domiciled in the CBN, operated by each organs of government. No longer can any official of government or any agency withdraw cash, let alone convert such cash into any foreign currency. Now, every money paid into and withdrawal from government account can easily be tracked from anywhere in the world. Perhaps the most exciting bit of it all is that the average Nigerian, who has been the butt of irresponsible leadership of several years, can now raise their hope that government can now serve them better. The common treasure of the people will no longer be pocketed by a few – and if it ever happens, it will be at a minimal level.

However, the people need to continue to ask questions and keep government on its toes. They should ensure that TSA is institutionalised, such that when the current leadership at the federal government exits office, the policy would continue to be implemented in its true spirit. But they shouldn’t stop there: they should insist that every government, state and local, also implements the policy in its true spirit.

Now that the institution of corruption, which hitherto was superimposed against the will of the poor Nigerian, is being crumbled through the institutionalisation of systems that ensure transpaency and accountability in government, the end is expected to come to the era of lords who head several government parastatals, under whom there was nothing like transparency and accountability. Dignity should again return to the Nigerian military, such that it will once again become a role-model institution. Now that leakages in government will be plugged, through the full implementation of TSA, even in our military, one believes that the Nigerian life which the military swore to guide and protect will again bear appreciable value, and every Nigerian in any part of the world would be proud of their Nigerian heritage.