Alhaji Isma’ila Gwarzo. Photo courtesy: DSS
IN this column last week, titled, “The Stolen Billions”, certain pertinent questions were asked about the unfolding story of the economic brigandage committed by some government officials during the Abacha years. For example, it was asked: “Now what happens next? (Chief Anthony) Ani has told us that he has helped, through his consulting firm, recover $700 million out of the pilfered sum (of $1.331 billion) from a bank in Beirut, with the approval of the present regime. Sigh. But what of the rest of the money? Is anyone going to be brought to book in an open court and, if found guilty, penalised? Or is it over with the recovery of part of the stolen money? Will and can there be further probes?”
Although we now know that Ani’s role wasn’t as great as he made it look, answers to some of these questions had begun to be answered by government this week. On Monday, the Chief Press Secretary to the head of state, Malam Mohammed Haruna, announced the recovery of N65 billion from Alhaji lsma’ila Gwarzo, General Abacha’s National Security Adviser who claims to have served as the Abacha family’s front in the dastardly episode of money-grabbing. This amount is still N48 billion short of the N113 billion Chief Ani said was withdrawn by Gwarzo from last year to this year in the name of security funds.
Malam Haruna, who was performing his first high profile task since his appointment one month ago, told the press that the government has discovered (and presumably seized) landed property owned by Alhaji Gwarzo — 28 plots in Abuja, five in Zaria, three in Kano and one in Gwarzo, as well as vehicles and trailers of fertilizer. The former NSA, however, is still owing us over N8.6 billion kept in two secret accounts in the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Malam Haruna has assured the nation that investigation is still going on. But the week’s revelations have raised more questions than answers. For instance, when is the balance, which also runs into billions, going to be received? The government has given the impression that it has squeezed Gwarzo’s balls hard enough — so to speak — and confined him to his home town because he is diabetic, but the public was only told that the monies recovered were the Abachas’ under his care. What of the monies under the care of the Abachas themselves? Since Gwarzo wasn’t necessrily the former First Family’s banker and sole treasurer, much of the other loot must have been stashed away elsewhere. How much and where?
To be fair to Mr. G., we might need to consider his plea that he was a ‘mere’ errand boy. For, if they did not approve whatever he is accused of, he couldn’t have done what he is reported of having committed, hence the question of what happens to the master that sent the boy on the errand. Should the boy be whipped while his sender is allowed peace of mind?
This is even if Gwarzo’s portfolio stops at being a mere bondsman. A bureaucrat of his stature could have had the conscience to refuse to be used by anyone. He should have expected public odium as reaction to his unclean commitment during the four and half years of the last regime. Surely, a mere postman could not have owned all those landed property which were presumably acquired fraudulently.
There is also the question of whether all of Alhaji Gwarzo’s property should really be seized. At the present mood of the nation when more people are angry with the former NSA than are happy with him, the confiscation appears to be welcomed. However, the punishment is akin to paying your enemy in the same coin. But not all of Gwarzo’s property should be seized and auctioned. He must have acquired some of them legitimately during the decades he had been in public service. Government should therefore take away only those things he might have acquired fraudulently. Even a man who didn’t recognise human rights deserves some.
Still, this billion dollar episode isn’t over yet. The appalling corruption was even less reprehensible than the assassinations and frequent bomb blasts that frightened the hell out of Nigerians during those dark years. There have been calls for an open trial of people suspected of masterminding the suspicious killings. In fact, all the money recovered isn’t worth the life of any Nigerian murdered through official conspiracy. This calls for an investigation not only into the business of stolen billions but into those violent deaths.
Some say Messrs Gwarzo and Co should be left alone to stew in the perceived penury and ignominy into which they were thrown without having to undergo a trial, that the seizure of their assets and its attendant publicity are enough punishment. This watery notion tends to ignore the premium for unravelling further details of the theft, the killings, the alleged set-ups, the use of public institutions by Abacha’s men to funnel funds into secret accounts during a spree that knew no bounds, etc., while the nation was left to suffer from abject wahala and drift on stormy waters. Meanwhile, we thirst for — and expect — more exposés.
* Published in my column, Melting Pot, in the New Nigerian Weekly, today
