Our attorney general, the highly voluble Michael Aondoakaa, has been very quiet lately. It is a season of upheaval in our financial system, in which the greed and avarice and sheer criminality of many of our business leaders have been forced into public view by the courage and doggedness of the new leadership in our Central Bank.
The whole country is in an uproar over the banking crisis, and what appears to have been a feeding frenzy on the part of the moneyed class. We now know that many of our most powerful and supposedly wealthiest tycoons took billions of naira in loans for which they had only the flimsiest collateral.
We also can see clearly that few of the biggest debtors had any intention of repaying, nor the banks any contrary expectation, since one hand was constantly rubbing the other in this incestuous circle.
In other words, what we are witnessing is the great bank robbery, Nigerian style.
At this point, many citizens would be counting on the law enforcement authorities to step forcefully in and demonstrate that our government is not completely in the pockets of this powerful cabal that has virtually taken over our economy and largely dictates our politics.
The citizens would be wondering why the CBN needed to invite the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission before our principal anti-graft agency would think it necessary to get involved.
Our fellow citizens, those at any rate not privileged to take a hundred billion naira loan on the back of worthless stocks, also would have been quite puzzled at the reaction of the EFCC and its chairman, Farida Waziri. In fact, puzzled would be an understatement.
The toiling citizens would have been downright stunned that the EFCC, faced with a theft of public funds whose final tally would be in the region of ₦2 trillion, has not swung aggressively into action, shaking all trees so vigorously that the rotten fruit would drop unceremoniously to the ground.
What the public has seen instead is a positively timid EFCC, which resorted to “inviting” the main alleged culprits for questioning, then weakly announcing a seven-day “ultimatum.” The EFCC’s performance, so far, has been almost farcical, a reminder of the character in Fela’s “Shakara” whose pseudo-threats include the indelible line, “Wait make I commot my dress,” all the while throwing not a single punch.
Now we hear that the former chief executive of the troubled Intercontinental Bank, Erastus “The Pius” Akingbola, has fled the country and is making noises about taking legal action from some deep dark redoubt, a fugitive from the law.
We are also told that Cecelia Ibru, perhaps the worst offender of all on account of the total looting of Oceanic Bank, has gone underground.
Having waited conveniently for both of these characters to skip town, our EFCC last night declared them wanted! Mrs. Waziri announced grandly what the rest of the country had known for at least two weeks, that “the two former bank executives are wanted in connection with fraudulent abuse of credit process, insider trading, capital market manipulation and money laundering running into billions of naira.”
Excuse us while we laugh uproariosly at this charade.
It is common knowledge that Mr. Aondoakaa’s first preoccupation, upon assuming office two years ago, was to hound the highly effective Nuhu Ribadu out of office as the founding chairman of the EFCC. It also is an open secret that our attorney general is an ally of James Ibori, the indicted former governor of Delta State who has since had all charges against him dropped by Aondoakaa’s justice ministry. Mr. Aondoakaa of course was Mrs. Waziri’s chief promoter to succeed Ribadu as EFCC chairman. And finally, companies connected to Mr. Ibori hold the largest non-performing loans in both Oceanic and Intercontinental, which were run by Mrs. Ibru and Mr. Akingbola respectively until they were forced out 10 days ago by the Central Bank.
We are not accusing anyone of anything. Yet. Just observing and connecting the dots, and waiting to see if Mr. Aondoakaa swings into action as our chief law enforcement officer.