BUHARI’S GRAVESIDE SOLILOQUY  

Retired Major General Muhammad Buhari was definitely speaking to himself when he, in the company of Generals Babaginda and Abdulsalami, amazingly declared ex military dictator Sani Abacha a non-thief. I could understand Abdulsalami and Babaginda saying something like that. Abdusalami who stole an unforgiving amount of money in 11 short months to now live in obscene opulence; and Babaginda the Grand Puba of all thieves would say some thing like that to deflect important issues and deter an effective searchlight being beamed in their directions. But Buhari? Here’s what the otherwise respected General said: “Ten years without the late Abacha, the said allegations remain silent because there are no facts.” Ehhh? No facts? Ok; let’s help him:

Ismaila Gwarzo, Abacha’s National Security Adviser (NSA) told a Special Investigation Panel set up by the last administration that on several occasions, he dispatched his Special Assistant to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to physically go and collect raw cash for Abacha using CBN trucks. It went as follows:

March 25 1994 – $37.6 million collected

February 15 1995 - $4 million and £2 million collected

February 17 1995 - $4 million and £2 million collected

February 27 1995 - $4 million and £2 million collected

July 8 1995 - $5 million, £2 million and another £2 million in traveller’s cheques collected

December 29 1995 - $5 million collected

March 28 1996 – Abacha requested for $5 million and £3 million. The CBN ran out of foreign currencies. It could only give him $3.801 million

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May 29 1996 - $5 million and £5 million. The bank ran out of pound sterling and sent $12.5 million to Abacha

June 20 1996 - $10 million and £5 million collected

August 20 1996 - $30 million and £15 million collected

September 24 1996 - $50 million collected

September 30 1996 - $50 million and £3 million collected

October 14 1996 - $5 million collected

November 11 1996 - $5 million and £3 million collected

February 18 1997 - $6 million collected

February 28 1997 - $3 million collected

March 3 1997 - $3.27 million collected

March 6 1997 - $1.21 million collected

April 22 1997 - $60 million collected

April 28 1997 - $60 million and £30 million collected

June 30 1997 - $4.9 million collected

July 9 1997 - $5 million and £2 million collected

August 8 1997 - $10 million collected

October 18 1997 - $12.3 million collected

October 21 1997 - £5.88 million collected

October 23 1997 - £14.76 million collected

October 29 1997 - £11.76 million collected

November 14 1997 - $10 million collected

November 26 1997 - $24 million collected

December 10 1997 - $24 million collected

December 18 1997 - £6.15 million collected

June 8 1998 - As he was about to depart on a state visit, Abacha got an urge. He left Aso Rock at about 4 a.m., and had his driver take him to a nearby villa. There the 53-yearold dictator died during a Viagra-fuelled orgy with three Indian prostitutes. Months later, financial investigators found a total of 130 bank accounts in Nigeria and a few foreign countries where he had kept large amounts of money.

May 1999 - Abdulsalami's regime acknowledged that the Abacha family has returned $750m. The Abacha family in turn claimed that the money was returned for a promise of immunity from criminal prosecutions. Abdusalami later handed Obasanjo a detailed dossier on where he might locate Abacha’s foreign money stashes, and a long list of cooperative witnesses.

May 1999 - T he dictator's son, Mohammed urgently asked to withdraw $39 million from a Citibank account in London. But the funds were in a time deposit that would not mature for two weeks; Citibank approved an overdraft - without imposing any penalty - and the funds were disbursed to three different accounts. These accounts along with others in the UK had since been frozen on the request of the Obasanjo’s government.

May 2000 - Eight accounts belonging to Abacha and totalling $620 million were confiscated by the government of Luxembourg.

April 2001 - UK’s Financial Services Authority reported that 23 London banks had handled $1.3bn belonging to the Abacha’s family and business associates.

October 4 2001 – The (British) Guardian in a full page detailed how the British government was foot-dragging over the $1.3 billion of the Abacha money discovered to be held by the UK-based banks. A further £200 million were discovered sitting in Banks in Jersey.

May 2002 - President Obasanjo announced that the Federal Government had struck a deal with Abacha's family by which the government recovered about $1.2 billion while the Abachas were allowed to keep $100 million and par bonds worth $300 million. The release of Abacha’s son, Mohammed from detention was also part of the bargain. OBJ further pointed out that whilst the Federal Government had spent $1 million to maintain its lawyers, the Abacha family spent 12 times that amount for the same purpose.

November 2003 – Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala announced that $149m in funds looted by Abacha and stashed in the British Channel Islands had been recovered.

September 2005 – The government of Switzerland announced the return of the first instalment of $290 million of monies stored in Swiss banks by the Abacha family.

December 2005 – The same government announced a second instalment of $168 million returned looted funds to Nigeria.

January 2006 – A third instalment was of $40 million was returned.

In London, The High Court threw out a suit by lawyers representing Mohammed and a London-based business partner, Abubakar Bagudu, who wanted to block moves to probe the alleged loot. Mohammed Abacha was also indicted along with Bagudu in Switzerland in 2000 on charges of money laundering, participation in a criminal organisation, embezzlement and fraud.

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Domestically, the last administration was able to recover $800 million from Abacha’s Nigerian bank accounts.

In all, it is estimated that Sani Abacha stole between $3 billion to $5 billion during his rule. It took five years of legal effort before the Swiss authorities released $505.5 million to Nigeria. To date, a little over $1.3 billion has been recovered so far from the late thief.

It has been said severally that the late General Tunde Idiagbon was the prime mover and brain box of the Buhari/Idiagbon’s regime. I am now a firm believer of that position. I also observed the sardonic but effortless way the politicians in the ANPP played Buhari like a tuneless fiddle, not once; but twice. It is in light of these that I situate Buhari’s comment while with his two colleagues.

Taken as a whole, it would appear these are worrying times for Nigeria. Something is surely in the offing. It is not yet clear to me whether this is the beginnings of a full scale anti-OBJ onslaught, or a launching pad for evil IBB for the Presidency, or some re-writing of Nigerian military history for some yet undetermined purpose. But some thing is clearly afoot. Hear Yusuf Maitama Sule only last week: “All along, I have said Nigerians should look at Abacha differently and not be too fast to judge him because I know Abacha never compromised Nigeria. If he had more time, he would have given Nigeria a sense of direction. Abacha never borrowed money for Nigeria and never squandered resources. He had a sense of direction that would have given Nigeria a place of pride in the comity of nations." He wasn’t quite finished. "Abacha was a leader. Leaders don't steal. They serve the people and look at compatriots with eyes of compassion. Leaders don't loot public treasury. They have the fear of God. We need leaders in this country. All the problems we are having now were not there at the time of Abacha. I am vindicated." Hhmm. Yes.

Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, Buhari's ANPP running mate in the last presidential election added that: "Based on legal principles, no judicial court has found him guilty of anything. There was no judicial investigation or probe that said he was guilty as charged and based on that, you cannot pronounce him guilty of stealing." Isyaku Ibrahim, former Deputy National Chairman of PDP’s Board of Trustees threw in this: “I'm only making an intellectual argument of comparing two regimes and I'm saying that there are achievements to point at under Abacha.” "Abacha understood the substance of power and anybody who does that don't go about stealing public funds. The so-called Abacha loots, where are they? There was no account of how it was spent. Those who recovered them equally looted them. In the first eight years of civil rule, there was no investment on anything.”

You see?

By Michael Egbejumi-David

demdem@hotmail.co.uk