Confronted with its first test since President Muhammadu Buhari took office in May 2015, the National Intelligence Agency is in the eye of the storm, with its leadership scrambling to save it from implosion.
This is coming on the heels of claims by the Director-General of the NIA, Ambassador Ayo Oke, that the large tranche of money found in a private residence on Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, last week, by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission belonged to the agency.
The EFCC, acting on a tipoff by a whistleblower, had in a sting operation carried out at Osborne Towers, recovered $38 million, £27,000 and N23 million.
It is reported that the NIA boss spoke with his counterpart in EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, a few hours to the raid, saying that the fund belonged to the NIA and asking him to cancel the mission.
Oke reportedly said that such monies, meant for the agency’s covert operations, were kept in safe houses in residential areas so as not to arouse suspicion. He claimed it was the practice everywhere in the world.
Interestingly, the Central Bank of Nigeria had since dispelled possibilities that the said money was disbursed by the apex bank. The spokesman of the bank, Dr. Isaac Okoroafor, said, “It is true the CBN issues mint-fresh notes, but it does so only to banks.
We deal directly with banks and not government agencies or individuals.”
In the aftermath, President Buhari has directed that the DG, NIA be suspended and ordered full-scale investigation into the discovery of the large sums of money.
The investigation, it is said, is to unravel the circumstances under which the NIA came into possession of the funds, how and by whose or which authority the funds were made available to the NIA, and to establish whether or not there has been a breach of the law or security procedure in obtaining custody and use of such funds. While waiting for the outcome of the investigation, observers have since lauded President Buhari’s directive on investigating Oke’s claim, insisting that anyone found on the wrong side of the law be made to face its full wrath.
The latest recovery of funds by the EFCC is one in a series of recoveries made in recent times due to the Federal Government’s recently introduced whistle-blower policy.
However, analysts have described the recoveries as yet another plus for the administration’s anti-corruption crusade.
Since riding to power, partly on a promise to fight corruption, the anti-corruption campaign, under President Buhari, has triggered unprecedented actions by concerned agencies, especially the EFCC.
In the following months, the commission has embarked on high-profile investigations, which have unearthed monumental cases of financial misappropriation, fraud and stealing from the national till.
For instance, the EFCC has confiscated properties allegedly belonging to both serving and retired senior military officers, who were linked to the celebrated arms deal scam.
The Presidency recently said that the actual amount stolen in the arms deal scam under the watch of the former NSA was about $15 billion.
There is also the infamous Diezanigate, which is linked to a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, and her financial activities in office. It is alleged that the former minister released the sum of N23billion (public fund) through Fidelity Bank Plc for election campaigns in 2015.
These two cases were precursors to the litany we have now been overwhelmed with as a nation.
The acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, was once quoted as saying that since the Buhari administration began the corruption crusade, the agency had secured close to 200 convictions, recovered billions of dollars worth of stolen funds and blocked numerous avenues of money laundering.
WHILE THE ANTICORRUPTION CAMPAIGN IS PURPORTEDLY YIELDING POSITIVE RESULTS, IT IS, HOWEVER, IMPORTANT THAT THE BUHARI ADMINISTRATION BEGINS TO ENGAGE IN MORE RIGOROUS THINKING ABOUT POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES TO PULL THE NATION OUT OF RECESSION WITH THE SAME AGGRESSION
The National Coordinator, Procurement Observation and Advocacy Initiative, Mohammed Bougei Attah, even said that the EFCC, under President Buhari, had exhibited actions that upheld the integrity of the institution by fighting corruption in a manner that was never seen before since its establishment in 2001.
In 2012, global corruption watchdog, Transparency International, had ranked Nigeria as the 35th most corrupt country in the world.
The Economist of London also estimated that Nigeria lost close to $400 billion to corruption between 1966 and 1999 alone.
Only recently, too, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, alleged that about 55 public officials stole over N1.3 trillion in eight years. Little wonder there seems to be a consensus that corruption has been responsible, largely, for the endemic poverty in the country today, what with appropriated funds for national development often ending up in the pockets of a few looters over the years.
However, while the anti-corruption campaign is purportedly yielding positive results, it is important that the Buhari administration begins to engage in more rigorous thinking about policies and programmes to pull the nation out of recession with the same aggression.
Nigeria, without doubt, is in dire need of sound policies that will engender good governance and structured economic development. And this, we believe, cannot be achieved by merely relying on exotic campaign rhetorics and an engaging war against corruption.
