They serve, they steal, they get away by Fola Ojo

Abdul Rashid Maina was Nigeria’s Pension Reform Task Team’s big boss. He was hired by former President Goodluck Jonathan to clean up Nigeria’s corrupt pension system. His monthly salary was about N250,000 per month. But in real life, Maina was worth about N10 billion. How come a middle-class civil servant is worth that much? Well, Maina is not the only one with beaucoup cash and monstrous mansions. Amassing wealth on the back of peasants and paupers who work their tails off on behalf of Nigeria is a lifestyle in Nigeria’s Civil Service. These ‘servants’ are richer than their masters. Maina was one. He was in charge of huge cash. Billions of naira flowed through his desk as pension funds set by law to be paid to Nigerians who have worked hard for years on behalf of their country. Maina cleaned up the trough. A whopping sum of N2 billion was found in his business accounts. But three days ago, Judge Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja sentenced Maina to eight years’ imprisonment for money laundering offenses. He must be cooling off in the calaboose by now. There was a time Maina was running from pillar to post away from the law and the country he defrauded. We all know Nigerian big thieves. Even when caught pants down, they still ‘lie’ like a dog. These were Maina’s words spoken from his hideout a few years ago: “In Nigeria, multi-billion-naira monthly allocation shared by thieves under the guise of paying pensioners. My task force recovered N282 billion. My team was asked to restructure the Police Pension Office. Minister of Finance approved N24 billion for payment of police pension arrears. N1.5 billion is given every month for police pension. The actual amount needed was N488 million. At the Police Pension Office N300 million was shared every morning like armed robbers’ loot. For a long time in Nigeria, N1 billion was stolen every month from the pension. The payroll of the Head of Service was N825 million. N5.12 billion was paid by the government every month. Nigerian Senators are in collusion with pension thieves”. At that time, Maina sounded like the hero hounded by thieves in power. But EFCC proved to Judge Abang that Maina was a hounding hyena of thievery. But was Maina just a scapegoat? Was he a fall guy for the malfeasances of traditional heavy-hitter thieves whose faces we may never see in court? Big thieves in Naija usually face no comeuppance for the evil they perpetrate. There are no practical consequences for defrauding the state even when the fraudsters are caught. Big men don’t go to jail in Nigeria; little people do. Big men come to serve; they steal, and then they get away. That is the narrative. In a few cases where they are found guilty, the punishment is a slap on the wrist. When the dust settles, and the attention of the country is shifted elsewhere, the thieves appeal their judgments, and they are let go to steal some more. Even with a bawling anti-corruption crusader as the country’s president, there is a thriving ancient wall of corruption erected by insanely duplicitous characters. The corruption carnival in Nigeria is still a free-for-all fiesta of stealing. Blisteringly unapologetic thieves and coddlers of blizzards of corruption are still subtly watering the ancient wall. Their contagious viruses of purloining we still see and feel. These garroting and goading goats continue to eat up Nigeria’s yams in a frenzy and in dynamic shapes and forms, and they get away with it. Let us peruse a low-lung summary of the noxious absurdity spun by Nigerian big fellas. Once upon a time, EFCC traced a whooping sum of N34 billion to former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Allison-Maduekwe. Her hidden $37.5 million mansion was also uncovered. Her assets were recently seized, but she is in London enjoying the rest of the loot that escaped the ensnaring hands of the law. Do you still remember $9.8 million and £74,000 recovered from former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation GMD, one Andrew Yakubu? He, we learned, was warming up to becoming Governor of Kaduna State? What about the former governor of Adamawa State, Bala Ngilari’s procurement fraud totalling N167 million? Remember that too? Former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Temisan Omatseye’s hands were also caught in a hot cookie jar of N1.5bn contract fraud. Former Local Government Chairman in Kogi State, Gabriel Daudu, was also nabbed for 1.4bn fraud. 17 exotic vehicles were also once recovered from ex-Comptroller-General of Customs, Abdullahi Dikko. N50 million was found on former Enugu Chief Justice’s bank accounts. N49 million in five large bags weighing 150kg was once uncovered at Kaduna Airport, owner/owners unknown. $50 million was also found in a Lagos house, owner/owners unknown. This particular one was tangled up within the wired fence of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency. The characters in all of these questions got either a slap on the wrist or a warm hug of “well-done, good boy” from his friends. They are walking free on Lagos and Abuja streets scheming for the next scam. Over 60 years after independence, corruption in Nigeria is still a lifestyle. Don’t believe me? Read up on what Rotimi Amaechi reportedly spoke off record a few years ago to some of his buddies. “Corruption has become our culture; it’s our way of life. Nothing can change it…” Amaechi was once Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly, once Governor of oil-rich Rivers State, and now Federal Minister with trillions of naira working capital. He must know what he was talking about. The Nigerian political system by default has nurtured and raised Chairmen/CEOs of cumshaw, commanders-in-chief of Nigeria’s gravy-train, and cockeyed capo dei capi of corruption. It is only in Nigeria that civil servants become billionaires without a track record of where the wind of wealth blew from. Nigeria is an island of wealth. A trough of tintinnabulating treasures. A penstock of prosperousness. A depository of abundant and abounding natural resources. The home of innumerable sages. Arsenal of intellectuals. Harbor of highbrows. The human assemblage of geeks and deft double-domes. She is stupendously prosperous, yet the vast majority of her people are leprously poor. A nation so religious and so pious with splatters and bespatters of churches and mosques, and with millions of Nigerians in daily mad rushes to worship the Invisible God. Yet, the nation is so drenched and marinated in dubiety and impropriety. Poverty rages on and hunger boils hot because people in power serve, steal, and get away with it. Giant of Africa? Give me a break! Does a crown necessarily make a man the king? Do a bloated population and a vast landmass qualify a nation to be called the “Giant of Africa”? Do leaders who are trusted with power in a true giant of a nation steal from their children? When you steal from your children, are you not killing their future? When you kill the future of children, have you not murdered the country herself? My friends, a true giant doesn’t kill the future of her children. She protects it. PUNCH.