2012: Year of scam, sleaze and slaughter

 BY TOPCREST

The outgoing year may hold the record as the one in which the country was almost brought to its knees by humongous corruption and horrendous carnage. Sulaimon Olanrewaju reports.

The Federal Government hit Nigerians hard on the face leaving everyone red-eyed with the surreptitious withdrawal of fuel subsidy on New Year Day. The government, through a terse statement issued by the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) on January 1, announced to Nigerians that it had ceased to subsidise fuel in the country. With that announcement, premium motor spirit (petrol), which had hitherto been sold for N65, jumped to N141 per litre. The prices of diesel and other petroleum products also rose astronomically.

The people, spurred by civil society organisations and the labour movement, instantly poised for war. It was a long-drawn battle that set the tone for the government-populace relations in the year.

Both labour leaders and human rights activists that championed the struggle did not rush into the fight. They took their time to plan to ensure its success, and gave advance warning to the people to stockpile food items at home. By the time the protest took off on January 9, it was total. In Lagos and a number of other cities, the protests paralysed all activities. It was a demonstration of angst against a government policy like never before. Majority of Nigerians rose as one and spoke as one against the policy. The number of protesters kept growing by the day.

The protest was so fierce that some National Assembly members who were travelling to Abuja to be part of the sitting of theAssembly were manhandled in Ibadan and compelled to return to Lagos despite being escorted by security operatives.  

Not surprisingly, the continued growth of the army of protesters gave government the jitters and it resorted to blackmail, stating that the protesters were sponsored. But that failed to deter the people. When blackmail failed, the government decided to mobilise the army against the protesters but it was shocked to find out that no gun or armoured tank could kill the resolve of an incensed people. Eventually, the government, which had insisted on having its way, was forced to eat a humble pie, invited labour leaders for negotiation and agreed to reduce the price of PMS to N97 per litre.

But the damage was already done. The administration lost a good dose of the goodwill it had enjoyed before the attempt to remove subsidy. Since then, sniff and snub has become the attitude of many Nigerians to government activities. That scenario played out when the president, on May 29, announced the renaming of the University of Lagos to Moshood Abiola University, Lagos in honour of the late Chief Moshood Abiola, the nation’s symbol of democratic sacrifice. 

The move was vehemently resisted by students, staff, alumni as well as a wide range of people and groups. Various reasons were advanced by different interests for rejecting the immortalisation of Abiola with a name change for UNILAG but the most consistent was that the government failed to carry along the stakeholders in arriving at that decision. The government had to back down and put the name change on hold to stave off the protests. The president later sent a bill to the Senate to effect the name change. But since that was done in June, not much has been heard of the bill.

The same scenario was repeated with the approval by government for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to introduce N5,000 note that would bear the faces of three Nigerian amazons; Mrs Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Mrs Margaret Ekpo and Hajia Gambo Sawaba. The move was intensely opposed by stakeholders who held that such introduction would sprout inflation. They also knocked the government for its failure to engage the people in the process that resulted in the introduction of the new note. Again, the government had to instruct the CBN to put on hold the proposed introduction of the new note.   

    

Meanwhile, the attempted subsidy removal and the attendant protest produced a good result as Nigerians began to interrogate the administration of subsidy and this resulted in the opening of a can of worms.

The House of Representatives set up an ad hoc committee led by Farouk Lawan to probe the subsidy regime. The committee in its 205-page report stated that the subsidy regime, as operated between 2009 and 2011, was “fraught with endemic corruption and entrenched inefficiency. Much of the amount claimed to have been paid as subsidy was actually not for consumed premium motor spirit (PMS). 

Government officials made nonsense of the PSF guidelines due mainly to sleaze, and in some other cases, incompetence. It is, therefore, apparent that the insistence by top government officials that the subsidy figures were for products consumed was a clear attempt to mislead the Nigerian people.”

It added that contrary to the official figure of subsidy payment of N1.3 trillion, the Accountant-General of the Federation put forward a figure of N1.6 trillion, the CBN, N1.7 trillion, while the committee established subsidy payment of N2,587.087 trillion as of December 31, 2011, amounting to more than 900 per cent over the appropriated sum of N245 billion.

The Senate also instituted a probe into the subsidy scandal.

But the House of Representatives did not come out of the probe exercise untainted itself as the probe chairman, Lawan, was accused by Chairman of Zenon Oil, Femi Otedola, of demanding a bribe of $3million from him, out of which he paid him $620,000. Although, Lawan initially denied taking any bribe from Otedola, he later owned up. The bribery scandal almost made a mess of the efforts of the House to unravel the mystery concerning the fuel subsidy regime. The House suspended Lawan and the police have been investigating the matter since. However, neither Lawan nor Otedola has been arraigned in court over this matter.

Although some marketers were indicted by the report of both the House and the Senate and some arrests were made, it is instructive to note that none of the indicted companies and individuals has been convicted.

But the subsidy scam was not the only one that rocked the House; there was also the Embeh/Oteh scandal.

Arunma Oteh, Director General of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), while appearing before the House Committee on Capital Market and other Institutions, alleged that the committee members demanded N39million from SEC to fund the hearing. She tendered documents to back her claim although the committee chairman, Mr Herman Hembe, denied the allegation claiming that it was Oteh that actually wanted to compromise the committee. Hembe was suspended by the House even as his committee was dissolved by the House leadership and another one instituted. Hembe and his deputy, Ifeanyi Azubogu, were charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the case is however, still pending.

The new committee set up by the House to probe the collapse of the capital market, however, recommended the sack of Oteh for violating some rules governing the organisation, saying she was not qualified to head the commission. Although, she was initially asked to proceed on compulsory leave by the board of SEC to enable them probe allegations of financial misappropriation and disharmony in the apex capital market regulator, she was later reinstated by the Federal Government, saying that the audit firm engaged to examine the records of SEC’s transactions covering its Project 50 gave her a clean bill of health and absolved her of all accusations of fraud and criminal breaches, adding, however, that “some administrative lapses were reported, particularly in cases where administrative procedures were not thoroughly observed.”

The decision of the executive to reinstate Oteh did not go down well with the legislature as the two chambers resolved not to have anything to do with her or her organisation for as long as she remains the DG. The resolve played out recently when the SEC was to defend its budget for 2013 as the members asked the representatives of the DG to excuse them from the exercise as the House would not go back on its vow not to have anything to do with SEC under Oteh.

But scams and scandals were not restricted to the National Assembly, in 2012, corruption and sleaze became so pervasive in the country and since the system of deterrence is so weak, the corrupt became more emboldened and daring. The country was shocked to its bone marrow to learn that about N32 billion was stolen from the Police Pensions Office by civil servants with N2billion cash found in the house of one of them.

According to chairman, Pensions Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, who said his team recovered the total sum of N151 billion looted by officials responsible for managing pension funds, about N300million is looted daily from the Police Pensions fund.

However, the PRTT was also embroiled in scandals as the Senate indicted the chairman, Maina, and two other members of his team, John Yusuf and B.G. Kaigama, over the misappropriation of pension funds. According to the Senate, the taskforce team fraudulently opened accounts where it deposited money illegally and expended such funds at will.

Almost on daily basis, Nigerians were confronted with reports of bizarre sleaze in government and this informed their rating of the nation’s leadership as the second most corrupt in the world as revealed by the Gallup Poll released in November.

According to Gallup in its report on “Global States of Mind: New Metrics for World Leaders”, 94 per cent of Nigerians believe there is widespread corruption in government.”

To corroborate the Gallup Poll, the KPMG, also in a report made public in November, classified Nigeria as the most corrupt nation in Africa. The audit firm stated that Nigeria accounted for the highest number of fraud cases on the continent of Africa in the first half of 2012, putting the cost of fraud in the country during the period at $1.5billion (N225 billion).

The report identified the common forms of fraud in the country as “bribes in the private and public sector, misappropriation, and contract inflation.”

Transparency International also decorated Nigeria with a badge of corruption in its 2012 report on global corruption. In that report, Nigeria scored 27 out of a maximum 100 marks to clinch the 139th position out of the 176 countries surveyed for the report.

Although attempts have been made by government officials to pooh-pooh these reports, utterances of key government functionaries lend credence to the veracity of the reports.

Recently, Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, wrote to the president to report that his signature was forged on the Export Clearance Permit with which the theft of 24 million barrels of crude oil worth $1.6 billion (N252 billion) between July and September was facilitated. Nothing has been heard of that incident ever since the report became public.

In May, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister, revealed that the government lost a fifth of its oil revenues to theft in April. Despite this revelation, nothing has been done. Nobody has been brought to book and it is not clear if anything has been done to discontinue the perpetuation of the crime. 

   

Similarly, the Ribadu report on the oil and gas sector puts daily crude oil theft at about 250,000 barrels at a cost of $6.3bn (N1.2trn) a year. Although the government has set up a White Paper Committee on the report, no one is left in doubt that nothing has been done to block the leakage.

This is especially so given that the government was paying ex-militants N5.6billion every year to secure the nation’s pipelines. This fact was meant to be a secret and Nigerians would have been kept in the dark in the matter if not that Wall Street Journal reported it. The report gave the break-down of the militants involved in the contracts as well as the amount of money involved as Government Tompolo Ekpumopolo,N3.6bn; Asari Dokubo, 1.44bn; Ateke Toms,N560m and Ebikabowei Boyloaf Victor Ben, N560m. When this became public, the government terminated the contract but there are moves for the renewal of the contracts.

In the KPMG report, Olumide Olayinka, the firm’s Head of Risk Consulting in Nigeria observed that “there have been a lot of cases involving the banking and the oil and gas sectors or government that lead to prosecution. The current noticeable trend is that many cases either end with a plea bargain or are simply closed without any conviction. The general belief in Nigeria is that the legal system is not effective enough.”  

Nothing confirms Olayinka’s observation that Nigeria’s legal system is not as effective as it can be as the trial of James Ibori, former Delta State governor. Shortly after leaving office as governor in 2007, he was arrested by the EFCC and charged to court for abuse of office, corruption and money laundering. The celebrated case dragged on for two years but the presiding judge, Justice Marcel Awokulehin of Asaba Federal High Court, dismissed all charges preferred against Ibori, saying the EFCC failed to establish a prima facie case against the accused. The judge quashed all the 170 charges against Ibori and others saying that EFCC failed to supply evidence or call witnesses to back up the charges.

However, in a twist of events, this year, the Southwark Crown Court 9 in London, sentenced Ibori to 13 years in prison for money laundering and corruption after pleading guilty to 10 counts of fraud, money laundering and corruption involving the sale of Delta State Government shares in a defunct mobile phone firm, VMobile, as well as the illicit use of funds belonging to the state government.

The nation has been scandalised by the ostentatious lifestyle of its leaders despite their failure to fund projects that have the capacity to transform the lives of the people.

While appearing before the Senate Joint Committees on Appropriation, Finance, Public Accounts, National Planning, Economic Affairs and Poverty Alleviation on the implementation of the 2012 budget on August 2, Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, disclosed that only 41.3 per cent of the budget had been executed. This rankles because on the contrary, the whole amount of money appropriated for the comfort of the rulers has been released. Budgetary allocation to the state house for 2012 was N18,344,524,169. No kobo out of this has not yet been released, yet the bulk of the money that would have benefitted the general populace has yet to get to the ministries and agencies.

A consequence of the pervasive corruption in Nigeria is the near collapse of the security system. The current year has successfully exposed the limited capacity of the security agencies to curtail insurrection or insurgency. On January 6, terrorists armed with automatic weapons, stormed a town hall in Mubi, Adamawa State where people had gathered to mourn three Christians shot the previous day. No fewer than 18 persons were confirmed killed in the encounter. About the same time in Yola, an ambush laid for Christians leaving a church service in the state left at least eight people dead.

The nation had yet to recover from the shock of that when on January 20, Kano burned while the security agencies were having a nap. It started after the Jumat prayer on Friday as some gunmen took over five police stations and freed all the cell inmates. They later took the battle to the police on the street, leaving many dead in their wake; policemen as well as pedestrians.

They also stormed the Immigration office as well as the office of the State Security Service. The gunmen had a field day and there was nobody to stop them. At the end of the attack, the casualty figure was put at 185 people, 150 of whom were civilians and at least 32 police officers, including three members of the SSS.

Terrorists and gunmen have become more daring and deft. They carry out their operations with precision that can only come from well developed minds that pay attention to details. They no longer consider anywhere sacred or impregnable. They attacked the Special Anti Robbery Squad headquarters in Abuja on November 26 and released a number of detainees from the detention facility. They also humiliated the Nigerian Army when they bombed a military protestant church inside the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji in Kaduna State, leaving 11 persons dead.

While terrorists are advancing against security operatives with the ease of a hot knife in butter, the security forces have been finding it difficult to locate and arrest them. Even when they do arrest, they find it a serious challenge to keep them. Kabiru Sokoto, who was said to be the mastermind of the 2011 Christmas Day bombing of Saint Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, where 43 people were killed, escaped from police custody in January this year. He was, however, later rearrested. Another Boko Haram leader, Sani Mohammed, was also said to have escaped recently from police custody but the Police High Command denied this.

Nothing signals the lack of will of the state to take the terrorism challenge seriously as the confusion that has enveloped the leadership of security agencies. The Inspector General of the Police, Mohammed Abubakar, recently said the police could not prosecute suspected terrorists because there was no anti-terrorism law in the country. But in a swift reaction, the Senate, through its spokesperson, Enyinnaya Abaribe, said the country had an anti-terrorism law.

According to him, “Senate was surprised and flabbergasted that the Inspector General of Police will say there is no Anti- Terrorist law.”

He added that “The Act was passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives 1st of June 2011, and on the 2nd of June it was forwarded by the Clerk to President Jonathan. The Bill was so important to President that he signed it into law on the 3rd of June 2011.”

However, terror activities are so profound in the country that the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) has classified the country as the seventh most terrorised country in the world. According to the report, Nigeria recorded 168 incidents of terrorism in 2011 from which 437 persons died, 614 persons sustained injuries and 33 property were destroyed.

Similarly, the United States of America has named three Boko Haram leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists and blocked their assets. They are; Abubakar Shekau, Abubakar Adam Kambar and Khalid al Barnawi.

As the country is battling with terrorism, so is it battling with other violent crimes such as armed robbery and kidnapping. Perhaps the worst armed robbery incident in the year was the one that took place in Auchi, Edo State, where dare devil armed robbers immobilised policemen before attacking three banks. The attack left no fewer than 10 persons killed.

Kidnapping, which witnessed a decline after the amnesty programme of the Federal Government, has again become a very serious challenge in the country. Hardly will a day pass without a case of kidnapping being reported. The kidnappers have so perfected their act that they are always a step ahead of security agencies.  

Another black spot in the year was the crash of a Dana Air aircraft. The crash, which claimed the lives of the 153 passengers on board as well as the crew members and some residents of Iju Ishaga, where it occurred, was caused by the failure of the two engines of the aircraft. The licence of the airline was immediately suspended to allow for full investigation. The authorities did not find the airline culpable and its licence was restored. However, six months after the crash, the relations of the victims are still running from pillar to post to get the compensation that should be paid to them.

Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State and five of his aides were also involved in a crash while travelling in a private aircraft belonging to the governor. Suntai, who is said to be brain dead, is in a German hospital. 

    

It has also been a year of floods. The country experienced flooding this year like never before in its history. Areas which were hitherto thought to be safe from flooding were ravaged by angry floods. From Lagos to Oyo, Ogun, Anambra, Edo, Bayelsa, Kogi, Benue, Kwara, Cross River, Niger and Delta, it was unfettered flooding all the way.

   

According to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), no fewer than 363 lives were lost to floods this year, while 2,157,419 people were displaced. The agency added that 7,705, 398 people were affected by floods between July 1 and October 31, while 18, 282 people were treated for injuries occasioned by floods.

 The agency also identified Adamawa and Kogi as the two states with the highest casualty figures. The floods also washed away many farms but the Federal Ministry of Agriculture has assured that there would not be food scarcity in the country.

The Federal Government responded to the flooding by releasing N17.6 billion intervention funds to state and some agencies as well as setting up a committee to raise funds for the affected states.  

  

It was not all gloom all year round. A few developments gave Nigerians reasons for cheer. One of such was the successful conduct of the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states. The two elections were adjudged free and fair by local and international observers, an indication that the era of conducting questionable elections in the country may be in the past.

Another joyful thing is that eventually the government was able to make up its mind to stop the daily carnage on the Lagos-Ibadan express road by terminating the concession granted Bi Courteny and instantly awarding the repair work on the road to both Julius Berger and Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) with an ultimatum that the bad portion of the road be fixed before the year ends. It has been argued in many quarters that there is more to the revocation than the failure of Bi Courteny to deliver on agreed terms. Whether that is true or not will be determined by events in the ensuing year.