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Nigerian Politicians In Public Office To Be Millionaires & Billionaires, A Food For Thought By Dr. Wumi Akintide
One of the bitter/sweet lessons to come from our new President's decision to publicly declare his assets, and to do it in a way that is a far cry from the existing way of declaring assets in Nigeria, is my obsession in this write-up. As a retired Federal Public Servant, I was familiar with the naive questionnaire that was accepted as asset declaration in the Federal Service. As a matter of principle, I recall forcing my self to complete one, as the pioneer Director of DFRRI (Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructures in Ondo State, not because it was mandated or required by Governor Okhai Mike Akhigbe who appointed me. I did it on my own, and sent a copy to my Governor because the general perception, at the time, and even now, was that nobody could occupy such a position without leaving the place a lot richer than he went in. Don't get me wrong. I love money and what money is able to do, but there are things I would not do out of principle.
Well, regime at DIFFRI was an exception. I owned two buildings when I got the job, and when I was fired from the job less than a year later, in large part, for standing my ground and refusing to allow some contractors to dig a well, and to have me sign for them to get paid for a "nuclear-powered" bore hole, the preferred terminology in Ondo State till tomorrow, whatever that means! The second reason was that a new Pharaoh had come who did not know my Moses, and he was told, and he believed that, for as long as I remained the Head of DIFFRI, he could forget reaping any benefits from that office.
As Governor, he was told he would never get his dividends from the a Federal agency that was swimming in funds, at a time, Ondo State was considered a pariah state in Nigeria and one of the poorest. The new Governor believed the rumor making the rounds that I was the bosom friend or a crony of Okhai Mike Akhigbe who, as the Governor of Lagos State would still have been getting his returns from Ondo State with me on the saddle.
I had the Ajike Adegoke Panel set up to probe my stewardship and to come up with their report within 2 weeks. The Panel came up empty, though, revealing that my administration had left in DIFFRI a lot more money than was allocated to it from Federal, because part of the cash I had put in a fixed deposit at the Akure National Bank at 60% interest, at the time, had yielded more interest within 6 months than had been disbursed to the 18 Local Governments for rural roads. I walked away with my reputation, in tact, because I did not and would not permit others to manipulate the accounts or steal from it. I could write or even gloat about it today, because I did not cave in.
Okhai Mike Akhigbe who could, someday, stumble on this article, did not know me, beyond being a fan of a popular talk show program on Ondo State Television named "Controversy". I was a frequent participant in that program with the likes of one Valentine Ojo from Obafemi Awolowo University. I did it, for want of any better thing to do with my time, after my voluntary retirement from the Federal Service, and prior to my decision to permanently relocate to the United States in 1987.
The young ideologically-driven Navy Captain Akhigbe who later rose to the number 2 political slot in our country and later retired from the Navy as a Rear Admiral, was an unusual Governor who overruled his Civil Service Establishment to offer me a job I did not seek, on a platter of Gold, based on his own personal conviction and judgment, that I was the kind of guy he wanted for that Federal job in his State. The way he offered me the job was stranger than fiction, because I did not know the man from Adam up to that point. The Governor got to know me and my credentials as a retired Federal administrator, but more so, because of his impressions of me from watching the talk show. Very few people believed I was not his bosom friend. They thought he gave me the job because of that, but we both knew we never met before, and there was never a quid pro quo kind of deal between us.
The man gave me a free hand to do the job, and he never for a single day sent contractors to me with hand written notes that I oblige by giving them contracts they were not prima facie qualified to handle.. The Governor who is still alive and well, and could well stumble on this piece, someday. had the greatest respect for me, like I do, for him till tomorrow. I could care less what anybody may say about his stewardship in Lagos State or as Chief of Staff Supreme Head Quarters in Abuja under Abdulsalam Abubakar. The way I knew him, he was incorruptible, and would call it like he saw it. I admired him for that till tomorrow.
I got the Governor's invitation sent through his then Permanent Secretary for Chieftaincy Affairs. Like I said, the DIFFRI I was selected to head was, by far, the best funded in the whole state, at the time, and the Governor himself told me he knew that some, in the top echelon of the Civil Service, could kill to have that job, given to one of them, but he could care less about their antics. He assured me that if I took the job, he would give me all the backing and authority I needed to get the job done, and he did, for the eight months I served under him before his posting to Lagos State.
I make this digression to underscore one point that Nigerians, despite all the rotten eggs among us, can still boast of incorruptible Nigerians like the Rear Admiral, like one Ahmed Joda, a Federal Permanent Secretary under whom I proudly served, in the Federal Ministry of Education, or one Christopher Kolade our current High Commissioner to Great Britain, who recently turned down an offer to go head the most lucrative newly floated Trans corp Corporation of Nigeria which can be compared in financial clout to the Enron Inc of Houston, Texas, if not bigger, because the ambassador would not compromise his personal principle.
I love to celebrate and emulate such rare breed of Nigerians which includes Obafemi Awolowo who once turned down an offer to serve on the Nigerian Constitution Drafting Committee, because he first heard the announcement of his name on Radio and Television and he thought that was clearly an insult. He was not one to be rail-roadbed into something like that, without the Military consulting with him ahead of time. That was my kind of leader, and that was my mind set when I chose to do an asset declaration, once I accepted to serve at DIFFRI. I wanted to leave nobody in doubt about my financial liquidity when I took the job, and I wanted everybody to be able to compare and contrast what I owned going in and what I owned going out. Basic decency ought to dictate that in a country riddled with corruption in high and low places like ours.
I was taken aback when I saw the less than a page statement or questionnaire they call "Asset Declaration Form" in Nigeria The statement was not worth the paper on which it was written. It was a thrash, if not a joke, that any serious Government would consider such a declaration a tool for accountability in an ethically-challenged country like ours. I therefore decided to redraft a new Asset Declaration that I could sign and would compel all of my senior staff to append their signature to.
By taking such an initiative, I definitely signed my own death warrant, so to speak, but it was worth it. I could possibly have gotten away with it under Okhai Mike Akhigbe, but certainly not under his successors, most of whom used to view DIFFRI in much the same way like most Nigerian Governors today view the Federal subventions or Security Vote allocated to their States from Abuja. It was their own national cake to be disbursed, as they like, with much of the funds going to their private pockets. You will be naive to expect such Governors to sign on to the good example of our new President who, by his own admission, is already a billionaire, and his first lady, a multi-millionaire, on taking office. I guess there are many more billionaires in Nigeria today including our past President who has not practiced what he preached, in and out of office.
I apologize for the tortuous digression, as I now go the very substance of my article today. I would be the first to eulogize Mr. President for having the courage of his own conviction to declare his assets and how he came about them. With more years a Lecturer and 8 years as Governor of and educationally backward State like Katsina, I think the President has done pretty good for himself. Give him another 8 years as the Alfa and omega in the Federal and the Oil Minister like his anointer, he would be counting his net worth in trillions, and only God could tell where that is going to leave our country. As he is busy making his trillions, his aides and hatchet men like Adedibu and Kingibe would be counting their millions, while the great majority of Nigerians ransack the gabbage dump to find something to eat .
Declaring your set is a good thing to do, Mr. President, but in doing so there are some conclusions the nation cannot fail to draw. Americans who are as rich as some of our public figures today, hardly ever keep their wealth to themselves alone. They find a way to share and distribute it. The first question which was not addressed by our President was how much he paid by way of taxes to the State and how much did his lucky wife pay? The second question is how much of that money was spent on public charity or in support of issues larger than their own enlightened self interest?
How may humanitarian non-profit organizations like the Nigerian Red Cross or the Salvation Army or some charitable Islamic Organizations did Mr. President assist in a deliberate effort to help the poor, and to narrow the yawning gap between the rich and the poor in Katsina State in particular, and much of the Northern States where Poverty is a stark reality as we speak? How much of that wealth was ploughed back to help Katsina State meet all or part of her obligations to the poor and the downtrodden?
I see that one of the houses that passed on to him as a gift from his late brother was today worth 102 million Naira by conservative estimate. This is quite apart from the inheritance from his late father who was also a distinguished public figure and the first Minister of Lagos Affairs under Tafawa Balewa, way back in the early 60s. I am really amazed at the level of opulence displayed by some of our leaders with some owning as many cars as 31 vehicles and spending millions on vehicle purchase and maintenance in a terribly poor country like Nigeria.
I see there has been another declaration from the former Governor of Zamfara State, clearly one of the poorest States in Nigeria like Arkansas, Mississippi. Alabama, Rhode Island to mention a few. The same Alhaji has again declared assets worth millions of Naira just a few millions less than the President. If what they are telling us today is anything to go by, we have to believe that Nigeria has many more millionaires than the 50 states of America combined. If you look back on what the Paul Gettys , the Sam Walton of the Wall Mart Chains of Super Markets has done for Arkansas alone, not to talk of America as a nation, you have to wonder what kind of country Nigeria is. You see what the Bill Gates of this country, the Donald Trumps and the Oprah Winfreys of America are doing for their country, you have to wonder what our own filthy rich millionaires do with their own cash? They probably spend much of it as oppressors.
What is most disturbing is that much of these wealth by Nigerian public men are, more often than not, stolen from the bounties of our Nation, and the crumbs from our limitless Oil reserve which accounts for more than 95 per cent of Nigeria's revenues. The states that produce those oil rigs are among the most ecologically devastated in our country due to neglect and prolusion caused by oil drilling in particular and environmental degradation of the worse order.. The citizens of the Niger Delta States today are today waging a "do or die battle of conscience against the Federal Government for their unconscionable neglect of their areas and their global interest.
You will not find any of our multi-millionaires having any conscience about that or doing anything on their own to give back to those areas a little bit of what they have taken away from them. You go to Arkansas today, you find the handiwork of Mr. Walton on the High Ways of Arkansas and in their Museums and Recreational Centers across the State. Not so in Nigeria. I once lived in Atlanta, Georgia for a short time, and there is no single day, you would not find imperishable legacies of Ted Turner, the founder of CNN. That individual has made Atlanta the News and electronic Media capital of the whole world, making it possible for Atlanta to win the Olympic Games and all the trappings that go along with that status of the New York of the South. We are not just talking of the multiple taxes that these rich individuals pay to America, like Land ownership taxes, Real Estate taxes and what have you. Not so in Nigeria.
Only civil servants and workers in the private sectors of our economy pay taxes from their little resources and income. Very few mom and pop businesses hardly ever pay taxes in Nigeria, and some of the highly connected business moguls in our country pay little or no taxes at all on their investments. It will be nice to know how much the Obasanjo Farms, the Alhaji Dangote Multi Nationals companies, the Folawiyo Group of Companies, the Doyin Investment Companies and the Are Arisekola Group of Companies in Ibadan pay as taxes to the State or their Local Government. It will be nice to know how much the Ekene Dili Chukwu Transport Companies in the East, the Dantata Companies and the Henry Stephens Companies across Nigeria pay as taxes per year on the heavy returns from their lucrative investments across the Nation and beyond?
Obasanjo is arguably one of the richest Nigerian leaders without any question, and it will be nice to see his asset declaration and those of the members of the PDP Board of Trustees he now heads as life Chairman. It will be nice to know how much some of the outgoing Governors and the current ones and individuals like Annenih, Agagu, Adedibu and others are worth in monetary terms. I am sure, they too are multi millionaires like Mr. President.
I think our new President and the Nigerian Senate should have made it mandatory for his newly nominated Ministers to publicly declare their assets before their confirmation sessions begin. In that way the Senators would have had a chance to cross-examine them on some of those questionable assets and how they came about them. If that is done, a good number of them would not be confirmed because very few of them can explain the sources of those wealth. They are seeking public office to go make more.
If Corruption is ever going to be wrestled to the ground, our new President has his job cut out for him. Trying to accommodate traditional rulers by creating a Federal House of Chiefs in addition to the bi-camera House could be good as a sound bite appeasement only. I think there are far more important things for the President to do with regards to the need to immediately amend the Nigerian Constitution using the so-called majority of his Party at the federal level. Removing the immunity clause that protects political leaders from prosecution for crimes committed against the State, is by far, the most important in my view, if the President wants the whole nation to take him seriously.
Making sure that the multi millionaires in our midst fulfil their obligations to the country that has given them so much by paying their taxes and creating a system and structure that would produce a conducive environment for that to happen, without necessarily rocking the boat, ought to be the priority of this "servant leader" who wants to be remembered as a catalyst for change in our country. Saying so is half the task. Doing something and achieving concrete result is what is needed. We would know it when we see it. Show me the money, Mr. President .
I rest my case.
Dr. Wumi Akintide. |