By Les Lleba
RATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
The object of this column in the last two weeks has been to debunk any insinuation that Central Bank of Nigeria, the government’s agency for regulating and supervising the banking sector, and the EFCC, Nigeria’s financial crimes fighters did not know of the rot in our nation’s financial markets!
To this end, “Banks and Fraud Incorporated” the first article in this series discussed the revelation by none other than a CBN Deputy Governor, Tunde Lemo in October 2005, that the apex bank was aware of the fraudulent statements of the banks, yet, we do not recall that any serious sanction or indeed criminal proceedings instituted against any bank!
Last week’s article titled”Banks and Money Laundering (1)” was first published in September 2005. That article explained how the banks are positioned as the best channel for money laundering, particularly for heavy weights in the business of treasury looting.
Today’s article which was first published 31/12/2007 provides further confirmation that the EFCC were not only aware that several of the former Governors were involved in treasury looting, but also recognized the role of banks in the illegal transfer of public funds abroad. Regrettably, the public excitement and hoopla generated by EFCC’s self-righteous media announcements were certainly misplaced as the zeal of the financial crime fighting outfit soon fizzled out. The following is the full text of “Banks and Money Laundering (2). We hope that CBN’s and EFCC’s current revival is not another flash in the pan. Please read on:
“For the majority of Nigerians who now live on less than $1 a day, banks are those architectural masterpieces which dwarf other less elegant and sometimes conservative and decrepit structures on major highroads all over the country. A visit to a bank is as auspicious, intimidating and unlikely as a stopover for lunch in Aso Rock by any one from the critical mass of impoverished Nigerians.
“Banks are seen as where ‘rich people’ keep their money and the majority of our countrymen would feel uncomfortably out of place, as fish out of water, in the ‘arctic chilled’ ambience with the searching human and electronic eyes of most banking halls.
“However, for a small subsection of Nigerians with an average annual income of about N600,000, bank patronage is a futile psychological desire to aspire to an ‘elite class’ who carry cheques and savings pass books to show that they belong, even if, their accounts show nil balances less than 24 hours after lodgment of their monthly salaries! The reality of course is that most income earners outside, the buoyant sectors of banking, oil and telecom cannot afford the luxury of savings!
“Meanwhile, the underlying prerequisite for investment growth in any economy is the availability of savings; without a surplus for savings from income earners, bank lending to investors will be highly constrained, and employment possibilities will become endangered.
“In the event that the Banking, Telecom and Oil industries employ a very small percentage of our labour force, it is clear that the banks cannot depend on this small catchment for their impressive profitability in recent years! An associate of mine, with over thirty years professional accounting experience insists that the actual target segment for savings is the small but powerful club of public treasury looters! He maintains that only this group of ‘celebrated’ Nigerians have huge surplus funds, consequently ‘mini’ clad damsels with extra curricula skills and qualifications have become favoured bank employees to divert the course of the looted funds from Ghana must go bags into the safe havens of bank vaults! The impact of such a banking strategy on the moral fibre of our women folk has been the subject of national debate and recently, no less a body than the National Assembly has been rightly worried by this trend.
“Apart from the rabid appetite for young female flesh, the critical demand of treasury looters is of course confidentiality and the ability of the recipient banks to repackage the bloated loot to give it the air of a legitimate cash lodgment; the rate of interest paid by the bank on such deposits is generally not a critical factor for the unlikely bank of noveau riche. It also makes no difference that the bank will turn round and offer the same funds to desperate investors at over 5 times the rate paid to these custodians of stolen funds.
“I am not a legal expert, but I know that universally, criminal law recognizes that the receiver of stolen goods (knowingly or unknowingly) is as guilty as the actual thief! Alas! Inspite of the public awareness that banks have remained veritable fences for looted public funds, our Central Bank’s sanctions have never been more than a mere slap on the wrist for a handful of indicted errant banks! In this event, it is unlikely that Nigerian banks would ever be weaned of the appetite for criminal financial collaboration against the rest of us.
“The banking consolidation was feted as the hope bearer for better banking services and the potential engine of growth for the economy, particularly the small and medium industrial sub sector. However, over a year after the completion of the exercise, most of the corresponding positive expectations remain unfulfilled; banking halls continue to witness long unending queues of customers, simple cash withdrawals can still take hours to transact; the consolidation exercise has also reduced the disposable income in the system with serious consequences for consumer industries and general employment.
The consolidation exercise inevitably led to staff rationalization and very many otherwise secure Nigerians suddenly lost their jobs without adequate preparation for alternative gainful employment. Meanwhile, the jumbo salary packages of bank employees created a serious fracture in the national wage structure, such that a driver in a bank would receive a bigger salary than a graduate medical doctor in any of our government hospitals! Banking remains the prime destination for almost every job seeker inspite of the increasing rate of fraud in the system.
“The Guardian Newspapers on page 6 of the edition of Friday 28/12/2007 carried a report titled “EFCC FINGERS 10 BANKS IN LOOTING BY EX GOVERNORS”. The report noted that.. “Not less than 10 banks have been linked with illegal transfer of public funds abroad by some former Governors under investigation or trial by the EFCC”
“The Guardian report added that “most of the huge funds being recovered by the EFCC from the former State Executives were transferred out of the country through some officials of the banks”.
“Incidentally, these nefarious activities of our wonder banks were not brought to the attention of the EFCC by the traditional watchdog of the banking system, i.e. the Central Bank of Nigeria, inspite of its self adulation of excellent banking supervision, audit and control! “Indeed the Guardian report under reference indicated that”the EFCC unearthed the various roles played by the banks in the course of quizzing former Governors”. Nigerians have been led to look elsewhere all along by the CBN as if the miscreant Governors and other treasury looters had carted their loot to Mallams in Martins Street for changing to Dollars before stuffing the Dollar loads into bags and suitcases and physically smuggling their booty through any of our porous borders! Na lie!
“The banks were the main conduits for treasury looters and they continue to play this role as you read this article! As you can imagine, billions of Naira will be readily provided by the cabal to defend this criminality and Nigerians should not be surprised at the legal jargons, technicalities and illogical summersaults in the coming months to throw the EFCC off the tracks of those wild hounds who are resolved to have the rest of us for regular dinner!
yet, again, my face is covered with my palms in shame. Gani is gone, who would fit into his shoes?
It is unfortunate that almost all the people at the helms of affairs both in private and public sectors are perpetrating these evils of corruption and money laundering. Even the masses of the country are liable. The problem is how do we put a stop to it? Or must we just keep quiet and allow things to get worse? The truth is most of these people are not loyal to nigeria, her development and well being. It is only lip service they pay to it, they decieve with promises of 7 point agendas, housing for all by year 200?, millenium development goals and lame organisational arrangement that they know will not work. A staff of National Assembly I know revealed the way our so called legislators share money in Ghana must go bags virtually on daily basis! Both the executive, legislative and judiciary including local goverment are all tainted in corruption. Most of the time these people flaunder the stolen wealth brazenly before us and we helplessly look-on, most times even salute them ‘Rankadede’ or ‘Kabiyesi o’ or ‘Ogbuefi’ or ‘Chieeeef’. They then celebratingly travel abroad to spend the massive loot transfered abroad with the help of the Banks to go and enlarge their coast with property acquisition and wealth display. These thieves will not remember that their villages have no light, the road to their father’s house is impassable and the young ones in their land can not attend school that is either not there or are ill equiped. Do they care? They are simply wicked, selfish and greedy, all evidences of fooloishness.
How do we tackle them as they are many and they have (stolen) means? Yaradua is even using Thieves to pursue thieves all around. AGF, EFCC ICPC etc are manned (or womanned) with poeple of questinable characters. Many of these Thieves especially the ex-governors and politicians are sacred cows (Yes they are COWS, meat waiting for the day to be slaughtered!).
Away out is collectively we should push for laws that will stop people in government from attending overseas for medicals, sending their children to schools abroad and buying houses abroad. Why should they be doing these and we are not bothered? Those are places is where they spend our stolen money! They should be made to patronise Nigerian facilities so that they will be forced to commit to putting things right. If they like let them die of kidney failure, if they equip Nigr hospitals, and employ qualified Doctors they will share in the good things they are doing and if they fail to do it they will share in it as well. And moreover, we should push for a ban on the use of generators in Government Houses/lodges and Offices (including Aso Rock!!!). I am sure that will force them to stop playing politics with power supply and deal with saboteurs of the power issue in Nigeria. The Sabos are their friends and relatives, so they know them. These are some practical ways we can solve the problem of corruption and money laundering! And it should also start with each of us Nigerians determined to make a difference.
we are in a trouble country and no body is going to fight the battle for us,Its a battle for nigerian.we have be divided by tribal and religion by this so call elites ,its time for us to stand up for our right.The problem with our economy is that of saving and not spending,we have got a lot of idle funds which end up in private account,welfare system must be put in place where all nigerians from the age of 18yrs not working should be paid atleast #30,000 per month and this will encourage spending and it will have positive effect on the economy.the former cbn governor should be arrested ,he was part of the problem and must have be recieving kick back from the deal.capital punishment should be introduce to check this robbers
Les Lleba; Thanks a lot for this article, this is a master piece; But what pains me most is, how many educated Nigerians are reading this epistle in order to develop consciences for change. Most of these G_8 organizations are speaking with forked tongues. You will recall what the Brazilian president (Lula Da Silva) said about the Western World Powers, that they are the the ones responsible for socio_economic ILLS of this Planet. If Brazil’s president who’s a member of theG_8 organization could say this, need I say more. All these Western Banks are hungry for the 3rd World capital flights to keep afloat, whence they were supposed to report “STACKED” capital loots to the place of origin. The reports on UBA for money laundering was mere window dressing. If these foreign western banks have long since been openly making public of money launderers, Nigeria would have been a place fit to live for an average citizen. This is my take on this situation; Just like in China, “ANY PERSON INVOLVED WITH MONEY LAUNDERING OR DESTROYING THE ECONOMY OF THIS NATION MUST BE EXTERMINATED”.
Great article. the top guys at CBN new all along what these banks were doing, they were reluctant or slow to act on the banks because of their cozy relationships with the so called bank CEO’S. Has anyone ever wondered how these banks could declare such jumbo profits at the end of their financial year, without giving out much loans to the enterpreneurs who seek working capital loans to run their companies. It is so glaring when one see’s their financial reports, the so called profits in their FY came from money laundering of the stolen treasury funds and the kick backs they get from laundering those money, it has to be, when you consider the fact that these banks hardly give out any loans to those people that truly need them to run their companies,by the way,these so called small and medium enterprises employ millions of Nigerians, these are the backbone of any developed countries. These bank officials would rather give Jumbo loans to those guys who are willing to pay them grafts in return for those jumbo loans they are never interested in paying back anyway. It is very easy to launder money in Nigeria,most of these bank official are always too happy to get your money, whether it is stolen or not. Each time I go to Nigeria, it is amazing the number of bank officials(marketers), mostly girls, who approach me to deposit money in their banks. I am sure they will do anything to hide the source of money,if the money were to be stolen, they don’t really care, they just want to get me to put the money in their bank, so that bank’s balance sheet look good at the end of the year. Just imagine what they will do for those drug dealers, govt. officials who wipe the treasury clean. That is Nigerian Banking at work. Tayo Onas (USA)
Money Laundering? What money? Which launderette? Do Nigerian authorities know or appreciate what money laundering is or about? or it’s just another copy cat? Bad photocopy of a poor copy of a fake product.
You would recollect, the nigeria only adopted the concept of money laundering during OBJ’s first term in office because the internationall community, especially FATF, OECD and G-8, were determined not to do business with nigeria unless it put in place measure to deal with money laundering and combat terrorist financing. Hence the current money laundering act, after many adjustments and watering down by th national assembly and the creation of EFCC.
The jist of the matter is that none of the nigerian authroities know money laundering is let alone be able to check and deal with. Otherwise, how do you explain the billions of dollars siphoned through the financial system and outside of it, with no one ever brought to justice. No banks or financial institutions in Nigeria ever sanctioned. Not long ago, UBA was fined $15million for the second time by US regulators for unexplained huge sums being transferred from Nigeria to London and New York through the UBA branch in US. What did UBA do, bought huge adverts in the press to divert and diffuse the issue. Did any nigerian authorities give a hoot, let alone uncover and punish those behind the transactions and those who aided and supported the criminals behind the suspicious transactions picked up by US regulators? No! it was another SIEMENS and Harlliburton!!!