2015: politicians and fundraising electoral campaigns, task before EFCC

Emeka Ibemere

With the political climate in Nigeria already gathering storm among aspiring Nigerian politicians, who would want to run for elective posts in Nigeria and in diaspora, this is the time for fundraising dinner’s rituals.

 It is expected that there would be inflow of funds within and outside the shores of the country; because in Nigeria campaigns and elections are oiled with the looted funds.

 Soon, parties and their candidates across the divide of the parties would start their build up to the 2015 elections. This build-up which culminates into campaigns, usually start with launch or fund-raising dinners by politicians and their godfathers expected to sponsor their candidacy.

From the U.S. alone, if the report available to our correspondent, is to be taken seriously, at last there cannot be less than 35 Nigerians in some of American States who are itching to run for different offices in their zones and states in Nigeria come 2015.

 This is the number touted to have prepared for the 2015 and are working under ground.

It doesn’t include those in other European countries also sharing the same political ambition.

Perhaps, the expected fundraising activities are organized by these would be contestants for their campaigns with the hope and belief that the fund raised would facilitate their victory at the poll. This fundraising coming on the heels of the worsening exchange rate of the Naira to the dollar is expected to favour the politicians, who would return the looted public funds fleeced by some government officials to enable them contest election.

To this group of Nigerian politicians, the loss of the value of the Naira may be a blessing of sorts. Cursory investigations by our correspondent shows array of Non-Governmental Organizations sprouting out on daily basis pretending to be either fighting corruption or working as charitable organizations are such conduits with which the funds are either returning home or ferrying out of the country. Further investigations also revealed that such NGOs were floated by aspiring 2015 aspirants and their foot soldiers such to have a platform to launder funds through the organizations. But quite a few are also investing their time and money in Nigeria where they hope to run for office. The fundraising normally takes place in Nigeria and the base of such politicians. Already some of the politicians are perfecting plans to hold a fund raising dinner in their based areas with intention of inviting their godfathers in Nigeria to attend the fund launch. Most of these guests from Nigeria are mainly governors, senators, members of the House of Representatives, businessmen and women, oil magnets, banker CEOs, Ministers, Presidency Aides, and other sundry government functionaries who have stake in the polity. Against all odds, these are the ample time for money laundering activities. Experts opined that fundraising activities usually provides time when politicians take their looted funds pout of the country or bring in the looted funds into the system under the guise of campaign funds.

Over the years of democratic dispensation, in 1979 to 1983 and 1993 to 1999, to the present time fundraising dinners organized by the political class have been conduits pipes through which money are shipped out of the country; only to be rerouted back to the country, during campaigns and election time for bribery and lobbying.  It is on these backgrounds that last year, the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde cautioned politicians across the country to refrain from using public funds for electoral campaign.

Speaking on Monday, October 7, 2013, at a roundtable meeting convened by the Partners for Electoral Reforms and Civil Society Network against Corruption in Lagos, Lamorde warned against looting public funds for electoral campaigns.

 According to the EFCC boss, who was represented by Mr. Iliyasu Kwara, (Zonal Head of Operations, and Lagos), said the Commission, while mindful of the need to insulate itself from partisan political matters, would nevertheless continue to perform its statutory duties as contained in its Establishment Act.

 Lamorde specifically said that the EFCC would not hesitate to invoke its special powers as contained in Section 7 Sub Section 1 (a) (b) of the EFCC Act, which empowers it to; “cause investigations to be conducted as to whether any person, corporate body or organization has committed any offence under the act or other law relating to economic and financial crimes”. He also advised politicians to abide by the rules and regulations guiding electoral issues.

 Adding his views on the issue, the Coordinator of Civil Society Network against Corruption, Mr. Suraj Olarewanju explained that the forum was meant to discuss the independence of anti-corruption agencies in the run up to 2015 election while making critical assessment of citizen vigilance and oversight of anti-corruption agencies in the build up to the elections.

The meeting also discussed Political Parties and their preparedness for the elections.

Mrs Robina Namusisi, Country Director, International Republican Institute, lent an international angle to the discussions, when she said that her agency was involved in “working with political parties to have stronger platforms; training political parties to know their roles and also deploying observers to observe elections and ensuring that politicians are more transparent to the public in the next election”.

 In his presentation, Professor Sam Egwu, Team Leader, Governance and Peace Building, United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, Abuja, said though corruption was rife and pervasive in Nigeria, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, remained the only anti-graft agency making impact. He however charged the EFCC to work harder and make its impact felt more by Nigerians.

The meeting was attended by representatives of some political parties and different civil society groups.

Last year, the EFCC disclosed that close to $100million were seized from travellers at the airports, trying to smuggle the money abroad.

Since 2012 January to 2013 January, over $150million fund meant for laundering has been intercepted by the various security agencies, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Nigerian Custom Services, Nigerian Immigration Services and some times, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, at the nation’s major Airports.

Murtala Mohammed International Airport and Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport Abuja and Kano Airports are the most notorious routes through which the alleged criminals are using to courier their huge exploits.

Further investigations has shown that with intensive crackdown on money launderers and their cohorts in the banking industry, the currency traffickers in laundering scams have resulted into recruitment of some bureau de change businessmen to be taking the money out in bulk cash after settling their ways at the airports. Equally in the business of money laundering, investigation revealed are the politicians and those serving in governments.

Speaking on the increase in cases of money laundering through the nation’s airports, the former Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Alhaji Abubakar Tsav, blamed it on politicians who have stolen so much from the country and now taking it abroad to avoid detection.

He said the new device by the politicians stemmed from the fact that going through the bank transfer would incur the wrath of the EFCC. “They will fall foul of the EFCC law and will be arrested and prosecuted.”

Tsav further stated that “There is too much of stolen money abroad. Our country had it so badly in the recent times.”

NDLEA Lagos Command moves to clean Lagos of illicit drug

Emeka Ibemere

Mr Aliyu Sule, the Lagos State command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has not run-off outside the track of his earlier promise, of taking illicit drugs away out of Lagos State.

Since he embarked on this risky war in the state last year, the Agency has kept his avowed determination and the result has started yielding result.

Last week, at the popular Festac town area of the state, the Command arrested two men in connection with unlawful possession of 1.6kg of first class heroin.

Sule gave the suspects names as Ogbonna Paul Obioma, 36, an auto parts dealer and Okpoagu Stanley Chijioke, 30, who claimed to be jobless. They were held at Festac town, Lagos.

Sule said that the suspects were nabbed following a tip-off volunteered by a good Nigerian.

“The Lagos command acting on intelligence report seized 18 wraps of heroin weighing 1.6kg at Festac town. Two male suspects found in possession of the drugs have been arrested and will be charged to court,” Aliyu stated.

“Okpoagu Stanley Chijioke who was recently deported from India told investigators that he wanted to use the profit from the drug sales in setting up a business”.

On interrogation, Chijioke narrated how he was ferried back home for an undisclosed offence but said he was unemployed.

 “I was recently deported from India. At present, I am jobless and need to establish myself. My friend in India told me to collect the drug from a lady at Oshodi area of Lagos”, he added.

 “I spoke with the lady on the phone and she gave me the bag. I took the drug to my friend Ogbonna Paul to help me look for buyers. It was in the process we were arrested with the drugs”.

For Ogbonna Paul Obioma, greed to make quick-money lured him into the fry of drug trafficking. According to him, his duty was to look for a buyer and as soon as the drug is disposed, he collects his portion of the money.

But it wasn’t as he thought it to be. Stating his own statement during interrogation, he said that he wanted to make quick money from the sales.

“My friend came to me with the drugs that I should assist in looking for a buyer. I decided to partner with him because he promised to reward me handsomely,” Ogbonna stated.

When the report got to the Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Ahmadu Giade, he said that drug traffickers have no hiding place not only in Lagos State but also in the country.

“NDLEA will spread its wide tentacles in covering the airports, seaports, land borders and across the country. Drug barons have no hiding place. We shall trace their hideouts, arrest them and make the country drug-free”.

Earlier this year, the command operating in the Mushin area of Lagos State confronted drug barons in a fierce battle that lasted for a day. It took the professional intelligence and approach to dislodge the goons.

The battle was reported to have started at about 3.45pm local time, with gun shots which rented the polluted air of Akala. The battle forced the crowded but busy streets to go to sleep as residents deserted the town, after emptying themselves inside available stores and houses.

 By the time the smoking guns fizzled away around 8pm, the long battle for supremacy over who controls the drug deal business going on in Akala has allegedly consumed more than four persons. The bone of contention was the raid by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), to stop illicit drug trading that has turns Mushin, a little Columbian town in Nigeria.

 The Saturday night battle at the notorious drug haven of Akala in Mushin area of Lagos official claimed four lives when armed hoodlums attacked a combined team of National Drug Law Enforcement, NDLEA, and some soldiers during a raid. It gathered that the NDLEA operatives and some soldiers stormed Akala, a notorious hideout for criminals in Lagos and attempted to arrest some drug barons, peddlers and users, operating in the area.

But they met stiff resistance from some hoodlums who attacked them with bottles and other dangerous weapons. The report said some of the hoodlums, who were also armed with guns fired at the NDLEA officials and the soldiers, prompting retaliation.

 According to reports, four persons were reportedly gunned down in the ensuing shootout, while some NDLEA officials sustained severe injuries.

The NDLEA, in a statement, said four other hoodlums were arrested by its operatives, while cannabis weighing 541.9kg and 32 pinches of substance that tested positive for heroine were recovered.

Agency’s spokesperson, Mitchell Ofoyeju, did not disclose the number of persons killed in the encounter, but said: “A combined team of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA and army officers at the weekend met with stiff resistance from hoodlums at the notorious Akala, Mushin area of Lagos during a drug raid operation.

The team of officers led by NDLEA Assistant Commander, Operations and Intelligence, Mr. Ojo Ogbechema, recovered cannabis weighing 541.9kg and 32 pinches of substance that tested positive for heroin. Four suspects were also arrested. According to the NDLEA Lagos Commander, Mr Sule Aliyu, the operation was successful in spite of the resistance from drug barons. Sule said:

“A combined team of NDLEA and army officers participated in the operation. It was a very successful raid because bags of cannabis weighing 541.9kg and 32 pinches of heroin were recovered.

 “During the operation, there was an attack on the officers by a large number of hoodlums who threw bottles and stones at the officers. The road was also barricaded but the officers shot into the air to disperse the crowd.”

 The commander added that two officers who sustained injury had been treated. Since that war, residents of Idi-Oro area of Mushin have recently reported that the gang has gradually returned to their enclave. They are calling on the state government to eradicate the trade in illicit drugs from Akala and its environs, if the State wants lasting peace in the area.

The resident on April 30, 2014 told our correspondent that the Lagos State NDLEA should raid the area again. The residents also described the activities of drug dealers and users in Akala as a major strength behind bloody street gang wars in Mushin. They added that Akala needs 24 hours surveillance on drugs. According to them, the NDLEA’s presence is daily needed in the area to avoid being used as an illicit drugs spot in the State.

Corruption in Council Areas: stakeholders proffer solution · Fiscal discipline the way out----Lamorde

Emeka Ibemere

There is no gainsaying that corruption has been the obvious factors of non effectiveness of Local Government Area Councils, the much talked about the third tier of government.

Over the years, council developments have been at all time low not because funds weren’t made for the development of the grassroots but because of the simple fact of corruption.

So, isn’t by surprise when the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde on, April 28, declared that Local government in Nigeria cannot achieve its aim of bringing development to the grassroots, if the problem of systemic corruption was not curbed.

The anti-corruption Czar was at the opening ceremony of the EFCC/ALGON Training on Anti-Corruption, Fiscal Responsibility and Effective Leadership for principal officers of Local Government Councils in Nigeria, when he made the obvious observation.

Lamorde was represented in the occasion by the director, Organisational Support, Bolaji Salami. Speaking on the need for the officers of the council areas to be prudent in their fiscal responsibility, he said. “The problem of corruption and lack of fiscal transparency perhaps remain one of the hydra-headed factors that accounts for the inefficiency and retarded growth that local governments continue to experience in Nigeria today.  The system has virtually become superfluous and redundant,” he said.

Lamorde said “Corrupt practices in the local governments have over the years rendered the local governments inactive and devoid of concrete developmental activities”.

According to the EFCC chair, corruption thrives in the local councils through inflation of prices; over-estimation of cost of project(s); the ghost workers syndrome; award of contracts and subsequent abandonment; and outright payment of huge sums of money to political godfathers.

However, the EFCC chairman said the Commission was happy to collaborate with ALGON to enlighten and train its officials.

“I am by this medium assuring ALGON that the EFCC shall give ALGON all the support it requires to educate its officials all over the country on anti-corruption. Fiscal responsibility and effective leadership at the grassroots level,” he said.

Earlier in his opening remark, Ozor Nwabueze Okafor, the President of ALGON expressed appreciation to EFCC and Discovery Circle Inc. for the training which he said was critical for the realization of the mandates of the councils.

“The most critical challenge is not the autonomy issues or the financial allocation but the capacity of those entrusted with these things to deliver on their expected mandate,” Okafor stated.

In their respective goodwill messages, the Acting Chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Victor Murako and the representative of the Director General of Bureau of Public Procurement, James Akamu said it was imperative that participants carry out their duties with fiscal prudence and due process.

 They opined that domestication of both the Fiscal Responsibility and Public Procurement Acts in the states would go a long way in bringing sanity to the third tier of government. As if the ongoing conference in Abuja was aware of the chairman of the EFCC’s view about the predicament of the Local Government Areas, the Abuja Confab panel are tinkering abolishing the third tier government in the polity.  

The Confab panel wants 774 councils scrapped.

The Confab is apparently suggesting a way to introduce two tiers of government in the country. It was reported that the Committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Government at the ongoing National Conference recommended the scrapping of the 774 local councils from the constitution and transfer their administration to the states legislature. But as the discussions were under way, members of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) stormed the National Judicial Institute (NJI), venue of the National Conference, to protest the decision of the committee. Meanwhile, the Federal Government last week inaugurated a 13-member presidential committee on the review of the scheme of service for local council employees.

As if that wasn’t enough, the committee, which focus on local council administration in the country bent on reforming the local council areas of the country with recommended that the list of local councils as contained in the First Schedule, Part 1 of the 1999 Constitution be removed and transferred to the states to be covered by a law of the state Houses of Assembly in a move to rejig the grassroots administration in the country.

The panel had after its deliberation on the issue two weeks ago, recommended the removal of local council as a third tier of government and gave express authority to the states executive to determine the number to operate in their states among others, even as it insists that Nigeria would remain a federation with the existing 36 states structure.

Leading other members of the group, National Vice President of NULGE, Lucky Gospel Ewa, while making a presentation to the committee, chaired by Gen. Ike Nwachukwu and Mohammed Kumalia, faulted the conferees on the position.

He further expressed worry that the status of local council was being threatened at the National Conference. Ewa argued that the local council, being the sphere of government closest to the people, was the utmost indication of accelerated and sustainable socio-economic development, poverty alleviation and rural democratic mobilisation in any polity. He wondered why the enviable height attained in the local council cannot be sustained, just as he lamented the efforts he said were being consciously made to further erode the gains already recorded by the tier of government.

While blaming governors for the move as unacceptable, he disclosed that the clamour of the state governments to have dominant control over local councils was being driven by an erroneous perception of reality by rivalry of executive powers being alleged on the part of council chairmen.

Ewa argued that the transfer of the responsibility of local councils to the state government would return local councils to the pre-1976, era and also that of 1979-1983 with its attendant implications and danger of political power concentration.

“Nigeria should not forget in a hurry the condition of the local councils between 1979-1983 state governments had dominant control over local councils. Our memory should not fail us to recall that no state conducted election into local councils”, he added.

“The excruciating handling of local council affairs by the state government contributed to the overheating of the polity that eventually collapsed the Second Republic”.

On the creation of additional local councils, he contended that the power should reside with the Federal Government using population and landmass as major criteria so as to address the problem of imbalance among other recommendations by NULGE.

“No matter the driving force behind the intention to abolish local council as a tier of government and remove the guarantee of its autonomy from the constitution, be it economic or political or both as we understand it to be, the union wishes to reiterate its recommendations that the system of local council by democratically-elected local government council should be guaranteed by the constitution,” he counselled.

The committee also adopted the recommendation that the functions of local councils as contained in Schedule 4 of the 1999 Constitution shall be transferred to the states subject to the power of the state Houses of Assembly to add or reduce from the list.

It reaffirmed Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution that the system of local councils by democratically- elected local government council is guaranteed.

Inaugurating the committee in Abuja, the Minister of Special Duties and Inter-governmental Affairs, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, said that the effort would in no small measure help to curb rural-urban drift of manpower.

‘’As it stands today, the teeming youths of this country prefers working in the cities to small towns or villages after graduation, but if the conditions of service are made attractive, most of them would be encouraged to seek employment at the local level’’, the minister noted.

The terms of reference for the committee includes: To review the current scheme of Service (2006 edition), to liaise with the establishment department to incorporate approved cadres in the scheme of service and to produce a draft copy of local government scheme of service, among others.

The minister said that the committee is expected to complete its assignment in earnest to enable the ministry present the documents for validation by stakeholders during the Committee of Local Government Forum (CLGF)/ the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supported conference slated for second week of June.

Earlier in his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr. Taiye Haruna, said that it is hoped that through the planned review and the ongoing collaboration between the ministry and the UNDP and other stakeholders, effective and sustainable development will be realised at the local level in Nigeria.

Responding on behalf of the committee, the Chairman, Local Government Service Commission, Niger State and representative from the North-West, Alhaji Ibrahim Halidu, appealed to the ministry to assist in carrying out a comprehensive evaluation of members of staff in all the councils in the country with a view to identifying ghost workers. Halidu promised that the committee members would do their best to turn around the fortunes of the local government service commission for the overall benefit of the nation.

The committee drawn from the six-geopolitical zones, Head of Service, NULGE as well as the ministry, has Umaru Ambrose as its chairman and Dr. Rufai Attahiru from the ministry as secretary.