NIA panel is a distraction
Nigeria has once again had her face rubbed in the mud through recent media reports of a discovery of large cash (estimated at N50billion) in a private apartment in Lagos. According to the Economic and Financial Commission (EFCC) which rushed to the media to break news of this haul, what was found at the mystery apartment in Osborn Towers, Ikoyi, include US$43million, N23million, and £175,000, all in cash. It was later claimed that the cash was being warehoused in this facility by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) ostensibly for “covert operations.”
Government has now set up a three-man panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, with the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, and the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, as members to probe the source of the cash. We consider it unnecessary and even a bit dangerous for government to set up a Panel to probe circumstances under which the money escaped from the treasury and found its way into the apartment. From every indication, many Nigerians have now been persuaded that the NIA was stockpiling the cash; Nigerians are willing to discount their initial suspicion that NIA’s claim to the cash could be a diversionary tactic by unscrupulous elements in authority to recall and possibly misappropriate the cash. If indeed the money belongs to the NIA, there are three good reasons why such a Panel is unnecessary and may even be dangerous at this time.
First, if this is a legitimate security stash and, as claimed by various reports, its existence was variously disclosed to the National Security Adviser, Secretary to the Government, and to the President prior to the EFCC raid, it becomes superfluous to now begin to investigate who owns it, who approved it, and how it found its way into the place where EFCC “discovered” it. And by the way, what is the National Security Adviser, who is said to have been briefed on the existence of the funds, doing in the panel? And will the Attorney General be the investigator and the prosecutor at the same time if it is found that there is culpability that needs to be legally sanctioned at the end of the exercise? This Panel risks resurrecting public suspicion that there is, indeed, more than meets the eye in the entire drama.
Second, by setting up this Panel, government is unwittingly promoting disgraceful inter-agency rivalry that continues to be sustained, and worse, papered over by the Administration. The Panel legitimizes the shoddy performance of the EFCC which allegedly disregarded the intervention of the NIA to call off the agents who invaded the apartment; EFCC operatives not only invaded the property but also gleefully rushed to the media to advertise the find, even before they finished counting the cash! Security agencies should quit doing damage to each other. Again, setting up a panel of elected politicians and their appointees to probe alleged security matters under a public setting will further damage the image and undermine the confidence of managers of Nigeria’s security agencies.
Third, exacerbating security agencies’ disagreements and rivalries creates a situation that the country can ill afford as she reels from the spate of insurgency, crimes and criminalities from which citizens are being held hostage. The current recriminations among agencies and the intrusion of the panel combine to create a distraction that enemies of the state can easily take advantage of to strike.
In the final analysis, if the Osborne Tower funds truly belong to a security agency and various government officials who should know about it were given a brief on it (regardless of whether they read the briefs) prior to the raid, EFCC should be cautioned for its overzealousness, for not applying caution, diplomacy and decorum immediately it was told that the fund belongs to a sister agency. EFCC had the option to write to the President to draw attention to the find; it certainly has no business rushing to the press to announce its discovery.
If the money belongs to the NIA, we urge government to stop chasing shadows, disband the Osinbajo Panel today, and carry out a reorientation of its security outfits so that they quit forthwith the nauseating public disgraces to which they have been subjecting themselves.