On November 29, 2004, TELL magazine published a major story with the title: ‘Seven Governors Who Can Buy Nigeria’ on its cover page. But, title inside the page was: “Their Greedy Excellencies”
As recalled by Archivi, the magazine said: “Security reports claim that many Nigerian governors have amassed so much illicit wealth and are strong enough to buy up the whole country, and are as free as air because of the immunity clause in the constitution.
“Apart from discovering that 26 out of the 36 state governors have been involved in laundering funds abroad, it was discovered that about eight of them have become stupendously wealthy since their election into office with huge investments in Nigeria and abroad.
“They are Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia; Peter Odili of Rivers State; Lucky Igbinedion of Edo; James Ibori of Delta; Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa; Alli Modu Sheriff of Borno; and Bola Tinubu of Lagos. Obong Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom was, however, also mentioned by the magazine.
“In fact, one security report concluded that of all the governors, only two — Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of Katsina State and Donald Duke of Cross River are apparently ‘clean.’ And according to that report, this only means that, ‘no evidence was found that they have done things on the scale or magnitude of the others in terms of abuse of office, misapplication or misappropriation of funds.'”
Then, another part of the story went:
“Nigerian financial and security agencies also discovered that the governors and other government officials have been laundering money principally by three means. One of the commonest means is through bank foreign exchange transfer, which they do in collaboration with Nigerian bank officials who are handsomely rewarded. These transfers are into several accounts in different countries, and they are run in assumed names. It was discovered that as alleged by Usman, some governors just simply change money into foreign currency after getting their state allocation and physically transfer the money abroad themselves. Independent investigations by the magazine showed that this is the easiest and commonest means by which the governors launder money, and they do it so brazenly that even security operatives at international airports are not unaware of it.
“It was gathered that when they want to move money abroad through the airport, the governors employ various means from the desperate to the most bizarre. At such times, some decide to come alone with their baggage. Such bags are labelled ‘diplomatic baggage’ for easy passage through customs. Some governors in the past had moved money abroad in such a fashion. A South-east governor is said to be the greatest culprit in this regard.
“So frequent and brazen had one governor become in physically transporting foreign currency abroad through the airport that the security agents once set a trap for him earlier in the year. The agency planned to create a bottleneck situation at the Murtala Muhammed Airport that would necessitate every passenger being checked in at the same time so that the governor’s baggage could be searched in error and any ‘contraband’ equally ‘mistakenly’ seized. But, the plan did not work out because the governor was apparently tipped off. He did actually travel but not with the ‘loot’ estimated to be as much as three million pounds sterling. It was his ‘lucky’ day.
“The third way by which governors launder money, the security agencies found out, was by dubious awards of contract to ‘bogus’ foreign firms for which money has to be paid. Such foreign currency is transferred into the company’s account when, in fact, no contract was awarded and with a friend of the governor running the account. But, perhaps, because they have discovered easier means of laundering money, this is not now a frequently employed means.
“Having established that many state governors do launder money abroad and that the source of such funds is the states’ treasuries, the security agencies were in a quandary over what next to do. So, they just sent their findings to the federal government. The top government officials who received the report were shocked by the magnitude of the findings. They were particularly miffed because citizens of many of the governors’ states, particularly those in the Niger Delta, have always complained that there is nothing to show for all the money they get from the federation account. Thus, in many states, while the governors have become very wealthy, poverty levels among their people have increased. The truth be told, the level of development in many states cannot be said to be commensurate with the allocations they have received. A run down of federal allocations to states from 1999 to 2003 shows that the Niger Delta states alone received over N800 billion. While Delta State got N167 billion, Rivers got N114.20 billion and N106.80 billion went to Akwa Ibom. Bayelsa received N92.70 billion, Imo N78.7 billion and Edo N73.90 billion while Lagos got N71.50 billion. Compared to states that got far less, the level of development in some of these states is appalling. Take Edo State for example, the consensus is that six years of the current tenure have been a waste in terms of development. Analysts of the situation readily point to the state of the state capital, Benin, one of the nation’s oldest cities, has regressed compared to a place like Calabar in Cross Rivers which many people agree is fast developing…”
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