Human Rights Activists and Constitutional Lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome was guest of Channels TV and spoke on the controversy surrounding huge recoveries made by EFCC, and federal government whistle blower policy.
He said, “My perception of it is that it makes too much headlines and makes Nigeria look like a country of corruption, corruption and just corruption.
“All the headlines in the last two years is just about corruption and no country, no investment in its senses will want to come and invest in your country if all you hear every day is corruption because they ought to be sanity.
“In fighting corruption, you must do it strategically in such a way that you do not hurt the image of your country.
“When you begin to make wholes of money, a lot of these monies orphaned. Have no parents. No father, no mother, no cousin, no sister.
“From Canals, from Tanks, from Warehouses, from Shops, from houses abandoned. Even from, as in the Osborne case, from flat 7A, in a 7-storey building where you also have 7B and suddenly 7A had about 43 million dollars, 23 million naira, 77 thousand pounds, yet no one owns it with the key to one of the safes showing clearly by the safe, it begins to make us a laughing stock.
“It becomes ludicrous, and laughable. I describe it in one write-up as Baba Sala’s allawada keru keru’s history.
“We are beginning to reduce the entire anti-corruption fight to one of a national theatre cinema, to one of Hollywood, nollywood and Bollywood, joined together.
“That is not how to fight corruption. The equivalent arms in the USA from where we borrowed our democracy, the Financial Action Task Force, the CIA, the FBI, when they are fighting corruption, you hardly hear anything about it.
“They first investigate, very thoroughly, they get the people, and they carry out quiet operations.
“Many a time, until they have secured persecution or until they have secured conviction or until they are persecuting, you can never hear the name of any citizen mentioned.
“I had some foreign friends called me the other day and said, is your country all about corruption and nothing else? Are you people so corrupt that there is nothing else in government?
“I am against corruption, I do not believe in it because it degrades a country’s existentialism.
“But when the people argue that corruption is so pervasive in Nigeria, I recall, I think it was when the president traveled sometime to the U.K, before that time, the Prime Minister was overhead in a conversation saying Nigerians were fantastically corrupt and the President was asked if indeed Nigerians were fantastically corrupt and he agreed.
“I personally didn’t like that answer.
“But he asked that the money were being kept in the U.K and other places.
“That other aspect of it, return my money is good. To me, the way he should have responded to the question would have been no, Nigeria used to be fantastically corrupt before I came in. it is no longer fantastically corrupt. I disagree with you.
“That is how he should have answered it. Yes because he approximates Nigeria, he is the number one citizen. When you are agreeing with some international western press, that Nigeria is fantastically corrupt the whole world will buy into it and they will say their number one person said it that they are fantastically corrupt.
“He could have said we used to be fantastically corrupt, he could even say, I don’t believe we are fantastically corrupt. Corruption is everywhere, including in your own country.
“In fact it is because of corruption that you are holding our monies in your country, return it to us. He would have given him a jab. Return our money to us.
“If you were not corrupt, we would not be having our money stowed away here, but once they’ve affirmed that Yes, they are fantastically corrupt, and then the government is now trying to live up to that expectation to show that we are fantastically corrupt, to me it is counter-productive.
On massive recoveries even in foreign currency & whistle blowing policy.
Ozekhome said, “Yes, let me ask you one simple question. All this cash that we have been recovering for months, where is it kept? We are supposed to have a TSA.
“I learnt that the NIA has owned up to possessing that money at room 7A at Osborne. The question is, is it part of our TSA”
“Why will an organization, a federal government agency, National Intelligence Agency, say they keep money amounting to about 15 billion naira in such a place?
“What happened to our TSA? All the monies, we have been hearing are being recovered in the last two years, where is the money? Why are we still so poor?
“Because the man in charge of the EFCC, Magu himself, When asked by the Senate, during screening, how much do we have? How much have you recovered? He said he did not know.
“All the properties that have been attached through expert injunctions, where are the properties? He was also asked, are you aware there is corruption within EFCC?
“He was honest enough to admit that yes, there is corruption in EFCC. The question is who will police the police? Who will guard the guard?
“And all the money we have been recovering, for example he was told that certificates of occupancy were flying around in the market, in the open market for sale on properties that were attached by the EFCC.
“He said he was not aware but that he will go and check and revert to the senate.
“The question is, all these money that being garnered, that is being gathered, billions of billions, we are hearing every day, why are we still so poor? Why is Nigeria in hunger? Why are we so destitute? Where is the openness?
“The transparency as to how this money is being used for the common man, for the common woman to remove the grinding poverty that has ravaged this land.
“I can’t see it; I can’t see the evidence so I’m one of those who believe that some of these recoveries are simulated propaganda.”
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