British War Against Nigerian Kleptocracy By Remi Oyeyemi

By Remi Oyeyemi

"We hope that, by tackling the likes of James Ibori, we're saying to those stealing from the state purse, you can't have your children at private school in London. You can't have a multimillion pound house in one of the most affluent areas of London. You can't drive around in top of the range vehicles. We won't let you move money around to buy multimillion pound jets."

- Detective Chief Inspector Jonathan Benton, Proceeds of Corruption Unit of London's Metropolitan Police. 

One of the major reasons why our ruling elites have been incorrigible about dipping their hands in the collective purse and stealing our resources is because they are confident that there are places they could run to when trouble comes. They believe that if Nigeria becomes too hot, their loot would be safe in the overseas accounts where they were kept.

As we all know, family is the most important thread in every person’s life. This is more so with one’s children. The fact that our looters and dealers who call themselves leaders could also hide away their children in foreign schools, away from angry Nigerians that may descend on them in a retributive manner, has also been a very good incentive for the incorrigibility of the Nigerian kleptomaniacal elite.

Coupled with the above is the fact that every country is always looking for foreign capital as part of the global economy. This way, every country hopes that the flow of foreign capital in whatever form ought to be encouraged to help the local economy and provide jobs. In this activity, morality has often taken the back seat. Not only that, the operating principle has always been one’s country first, before others. This is in obeisance to the first law of nature, which is self-preservation.

This has always been the operating rules of the European countries as well as the USA. It has been this way before colonialism. It was so during and after colonialism. This was why the conscienceless exploitation of African continent was carried out without any remorse whatsoever. This crude Euro-American mentality has spilled over to the contemporary politico-economic relationships with mother Africa and has encouraged the pillaging of African resources for “safe-keeping” and benefits of the citizens of Europe and America.

To this end, our clueless leaders, who lack the vision and capacity to liberate and empower their own citizens, have been willing partners in this odious endeavor. Rather than help to develop their countries, they siphon their local resources for glamor in Europe and America. They buy mansions in very exclusive neighborhood, purchase top-of-the-line exotic cars, send their children to the most expensive schools in those countries and patronize their well-equipped hospitals.

They impoverish their own people for the benefits of the Euro-American economies. They commit treasonable genre of economic and political crimes against their own countries to accomplish these dastardly acts. They become highly irritable when critiqued. They transform into blood-sucking dictators and would mow down their people, should the people have the guts to protest misrule. They do all these, because they are confident that, if the worse comes to the worst, and they are chased out of their countries, they could always escape to these Euro-American countries to live a life of opulence for the rest of their lives.

Of recent, the frontier of these countries willing to allow the “safe-keeping” of ill-gotten wealth has expanded into the Middle-eastern, Asian, South-American as well as the Caribbean nations. The competition elicited by the new global economy has made this possible. But "Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong," says Daniel O'Connell, as quoted by Chief Obafemi Awolowo in his 1961 lecture, “Politics and Religion.”

This is where Britain’s new attitude and approach to international money laundering law must be commended by those who wish Nigeria well. Though, it could be argued that the British as colonial overlords of Nigeria fermented the ground on which the present corruption has germinated gigantic roots, it is still commendable that they are seeking to allow morality and law to operate pari-passu in checking the excesses of the Nigerian rulers.

Without doubt, there is an element of self-interest embedded in this new attitude of the British.  Nevertheless, it must be welcomed by all and sundry.  Nigerian leaders, after messing up their own land, have unleashed their stolen wealth on the British psyche. Watching a Mutallab, an unemployed student, live in a four million dollar apartment in London; witnessing Nigerians lavishly spend hundreds of thousands of pound sterling in Lloyds’, on their bad days; observing Nigerians buy mansions that would take British citizens two lives to pay for and seeing them buy “cash down,” exotic cars that ninety-nine percent of them could not afford on hire purchase, could not be good for the psyche of a people who work hard to make few hundred pounds a week,

According to a report by the London CNN, the British Banks have been fingered by Proceeds of Corruption Unit of London's Metropolitan Police funded by UK government's Department for International Development, as being complicit in money laundering activities. The same report noted that in March, this year, “the Financial Services Authority fined Coutts, a private arm of Royal Bank of Scotland, a record $14 million for failing to monitor three-quarters of its high-risk customers, known as Politically Exposed Persons. Although Coutts says it found no evidence of money laundering, and its processes are now robust, campaigners say London's banks are still playing a role in the problem of African corruption.” 

The Transparency International has reportedly called for “more sanctions” against these Banking Institutions, noting “the greater the severity of penalties, the greater the deterrent effect." Robert Palmer of anti corruption NGO, Global Witness, has also echoed this position by contending that "the only way we're going to get serious change is if you have heavy penalties, you go after individual bankers and, in the worst cases, in the most egregious failures, you put people in jail."

Reviewing the colonial history of Nigeria it is difficult to miss the overt acts of the British in setting up Nigeria for failure. The British corrupted Nigerian demographic distribution, introduced apartheid, hounded and haunted Nigeria’s best out of power play and grandfathered the docile, incompetent and feudalistic into power to guarantee British continued hold on the destiny of Nigeria.

But if this present war on the Nigerian kleptocrats is what the British government would use to atone for its sins against the peoples of Nigeria, then so be it. We should encourage the British and give them a hand. While we exercise caution to ensure that this is not a “Greek Gift,” Nigerians the world over should embark on war of exposition against these enemies of our people. Where possible, let us institute court cases against them in the country where their accounts could be traced. International laws could be employed to frustrate dubious collaborators in such countries and bring these thieves to book.

If their stolen wealth is no longer safe outside the shores of Nigeria, and there is unbearable pressure on them within Nigeria, the incentive to steal would be greatly reduced.