How The Military Taught Nigerians The Art Of Looting

 By Owei Lakemfa

It will be fallacious to say the military taught Nigerians how to steal. In truth, stealing maybe as old as humanity itself. In fact, stealing is so old that it features in the Ten Commandments God reportedly gave humanity: ‘Thou Shall Not Steal’.

*Abacha and a Newswatch magazine cover 

However, while the politicians who stole  before military rule commenced in Nigeria, were petty thieves, the Generals raised the standard to actual ‘state capture’. While the former, given the consequences, were afraid to be caught, the latter actually lived in the treasury, conscious that, even if caught, there might be no adverse consequences. In any case, esprit de corps obliges Generals to look out for each other. So, despite all the accusations of looting against the Babangida regime, including the Gulf War windfall, nobody dared or has dared to probe it.

Even when there are documents and claims that retired General Muhammadu Buhari was not transparent in running the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, there was no probe. Undoubtedly, the most infamous looter in Nigerian history was General Sani Abacha. He was indisputably, the ‘Looter-in-Chief’. However, despite over $5 billion being recovered from the funds he looted and stashed abroad, his predecessors like Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari, retired Generals like Ishaya Bamaiyi, reigning anti-corruption crusaders like Buba Galadima and their hordes of  ‘bloody civilian’ supporters like Amina Mohammed,  swear Abacha never stole. This is despite years of Europe and United States returning the loot and the 175 million Euro  stolen funds recovered from the Abacha  family.

The only Nigerian Head of State I know who acknowledged that Abacha was a most  audacious treasury looter is retired General Abdulsalam Abubakar, his immediate successor. He was Head of the Military Provisional Ruling Council, PRC, which the press dubbed the ‘Provisional Looting Council’, PLC – for its own prowess in cleaning the national treasury.  Abubakar ruled that  despite Abacha’s loot, nobody can be brought to book. He had  ready answers why those caught with stolen funds would not be brought to justice.  On May 18, 1999, that  is eleven  days before he was to  hand over power, Abubakar made it his duty to publicly clear all the accused. Although huge sums of stolen public funds were recovered from Ismaila Gwarzo, Abacha’s Security Adviser,  General Abubakar ruled there will be no prosecution because Gwarzo claimed “he only acted  as his master’s post office”. That is, he  was Abacha’s money launderer.  

Huge amounts of stolen Nigerian funds were found on Mrs Maryam Abacha  and her family. But Abubakar ruled that they should not be prosecuted because “these people never signed anything  to collect the recovered money.” Etubom Anthony Ani, Abacha’s Finance Minister, was caught with lots of stolen public funds out of which he willingly refunded N350 million.  His colleague, Alhaji Bashir  Dalhatu, who was the Energy Minister was also caught in possession of huge funds taken from the public treasury. He offered to refund N500 million to the treasury. Abubakar said both men will not be prosecuted because they claimed the stolen funds were gifts from Abacha.

In his own case, all Abubakar did was to swear he had not stolen public funds, although he did not declare his assets. His Deputy, then Admiral Mike Akhigbe, was variously accused of fraudulent acquisition of stupendous wealth and challenged to reveal the source; he could not. Rather, he tried to shut down those demanding accountability by threatening to take them to court. Needless to say, Akhigbe never took anybody to court. Meanwhile a so-called ‘Committee of Friends’ galloped to defend the inhuman atrocities and looting by Abacha and Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, his Chief Security Officer. This body, composed of Umaru Faruk Yola, Ahmed Ubale, Abdullahi Mohammed, Rabiu Isiaku and Amina Mohammed on April 15, 1999 took an advertisement in the ‘Guardian Newspapers’.  They, in claiming  to be stating “the facts on the ground”, strived  to defend Abacha against the billions of dollars he looted by characterising the recovered funds as “…seemingly mind boggling tales  of treasury looting.”

Over the years, lots of funds looted by Abacha were retrieved. These included $750 million from the Abacha family in 1998; $1.2 billion in 2002; $160 million from Jersey in 2003; and $88 million from Switzerland the same year. In 2005, $461.3 million was retrieved from Switzerland. Despite these recoveries, when Babangida visited the Abacha family in Kano on June 8, 2008 he declared that Abacha never stole any money from the Nigerian treasury. On that same day, Buhari stood before man and God and declared that the facts against Abacha’s looting are “baseless”. He added that “…ten years after Abacha those allegations remain unproven because of lack of facts.”

Another ten years later, Buhari after being Nigerian President from 2015 and spending parts of the retrieved Abacha loot, could no longer utter such barefaced lies, especially when he was an integral part of the Abacha regime. But, he would not apologise for his untruths. Rather, when his Buhari Support Organisation, BSO, paid him a solidarity visit in 2018, he said: “No matter what opinion you have about Abacha, I agreed to work with him…” Buhari  is not alone in the campaign to present the internationally certified treasury looter as a saint. Retired General Ishaya Bamaiyi who was Abacha’s Chief of Army Staff also swore in 2017, that is 19 years after Nigeria started receiving the looted funds, that Abacha never stole. While launching his book, Vindication of a General, Bamaiyi  declared; “Abacha loot is a media creation.”

Buba Galadima, an engineer who today, waxes lyrical about probity and good governance, makes  a rather untenable defence of Abacha. He claimed that it was Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Libya’s Muammar Ghadaffi who advised Abacha to loot Nigeria’s funds and deposit them in various banks abroad in order to avoid likely sanctions by the United States. Incredible! So the solution to possible US sanctions is to go deposit Nigeria’s funds in US and European banks. How idiotic! After 29 years cumulative military misrule during which gun-wielding  terrorists from the barracks held the country and its treasury hostage, exerting ransom, Nigeria has become a graduate of that military culture. Many politicians have been good students of the Generals School of Lootocracy.

This piece is one of a number I have hesitated writing for a long time because there would be too many people who will feel offended. Also, I have become quite conscious that the bunker of self-evident Truth from which I have been firing my columns is now susceptible  to bunker buster bombs like the cyber-stalking laws. Therefore, I am fleeing to shelter in the bunker of History. There, I hope to be exonerated by time, which today, is still a toddler.

*Lakemfa is a commentator on public issues