ORJI KALU CONVICTION – MATTERS ARISING ON RECOVERED ASSETS

By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku

With his conviction, assets tractable to him have been forfeited to the federal government, and at once triggering discussions related to the Ibori, Abacha and Alamieyeisegha cases. Why did the judge not return the monies Orji Kalu stole to the good people of Abia State? After all in the Abachan and Alamieyeiseghan cases, the monies that the two persons ‘kept’ for or from their peoples were returned to the people. There are arguments that like the Ibori case wherein his predecessor refused to ‘cooperate’ by turning in the account records of Delta state to the EFCC, Abia people and government seemingly refused to cooperate with investigations all through the 12 or so years that the investigations leading to Orji Kalu’s conviction took.

In 2018 Nigeria received the last tranche of $322.5million stashed in Switzerland by the late dictator, Sani Abacha. Prior to the return of those monies, there had been many back and forth concerning the proper and accountable utilization of the first tranche returned to Nigeria circa 2005.

While the Federal government at that time said that the monies were factored into the budget to cover the cost of building schools, hospitals and providing rural infrastructure, Civil Society Organizations which carried out a verification of the said projects refuted the government claim.

According to a report – How Abacha Loot was spent – A Civil Society Shadow Report on the World Bank, Government and CSOs PEMFAR Monitoring Exercise, the monies were not put to an accountable and transparent use and therefore were re-looted by functionaries of state.

Matters concerning the return of the second tranche of the Abacha loot to Nigeria suffered some sort of setback. First, the ‘body language’ of Mr. President seemed to suggest that there was no Abacha loot anywhere, but it was not until the David Cameron called an anti-corruption meeting in 2016, with an asset recovery thrust to it that a quick and some sort of frantic adjustment of presidential body language took place.

Even though Nigeria was insulted as ‘fantastically corrupt’, our president who initially denied the existence of the Abacha loot quickly responded to the Cameron quip that all he wanted was for the return of the loot.

Issues with the return of loot returned from overseas have included, but not limited to how best to utilize the funds. In a MoU which Switzerland signed with the Nigerian government, the Swiss said that since the first Abacha loot appeared re-looted by the state, it would only agree to return the last tranche only if there was World Bank and Civil Society oversight.

That decision did not go down well with a section of civil society, citing issues related to Nigeria’s sovereignty. Other issues related to the use of the funds – on one divide were those pushing for the erection of ‘legacy projects’ like a school, or hospital or a road to which everyone would relate to as epitaphs for future generations to reference.

But the argument, to ‘distribute’ the monies to the poor stood and won on three counts – one, the present administration had made a campaign promise to pay poor Nigerians N5, 000.00 monthly and therefore what would be wrong with attaching the returned Abacha loot with an already existing Federal government program – the National Cash Transfer Program?

Second, part of the agreement with the Swiss for the return of the second and last tranche of the Abacha loot was that it was to go directly to Nigerians, (not the poorest of the poor as was canvassed by activists on this side).

The third reason was that if the monies were to be put into ‘legacy’ projects, issues of procurement and bureaucracy would crop up and pave the way for a re-enactment of the conditions which facilitated the re-looting of the first tranche of the returned Abacha loot.

But the politics involved in situating what to do with returned funds did not end with the Abacha loot. There is the Diepreye Alamieyeisegha loot as well. When the monies were recovered, it was not difficult to be able to take the decision to return the monies to Bayelsa state.

After all, the former governor was said to have dipped into the purse of the Bayelsan commonwealth and therefore that was where the recovered monies should go.

But most Bayelsans are a bit hard put to come to terms that Diepreye Alamieyeisegha actually stole those monies. Most believed that as governor general of the Ijaw nation, that he kept the monies for them, and therefore theirs is a matter not as complex as the Abacha returned loot.

Most Nigerians believe that just so the way Diepreye Alamieyeisegha ‘kept’ those millions of dollars in foreign banks for Bayelsans, so did Abacha stash those billions of dollars for Nigerians and for his people.

This category of Nigerians argue that till date, and since the ‘distribution’ of the said Abacha loot began, an intricate system of selection has made it well-nigh impossible for the monies to get to those areas of Nigeria where the monies came from, that is, the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria.

The same concept played out with the James Ibori case. Just the same way Bayelsans and certain elements in the North believed that the Alamieyeiseghan and Abachan loot(s) respectively ‘belonged’ to them, certain people actually held the view that all the monies that James Ibori stole were monies he ‘kept’ for them.

They support this view with the idea that the Ibori case was a witch hunt, orchestrated by Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, who considered James Ibori’s resource control campaign which he took to the United Kingdom at the early periods of his first tenure as Delta state governor, an affront to Nigeria.

Such ratiocination is now playing out with the recent jailing of Orji Kalu, former governor of Abia state and senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As governor, Kalu stole over 7billion naira.

With his conviction, assets tractable to him have been forfeited to the federal government, and at once triggering discussions related to the Ibori, Abacha and Alamieyeisegha cases.

Why did the judge not return the monies Orji Kalu stole to the good people of Abia State?

After all in the Abachan and Alamieyeiseghan cases, the monies that the two persons ‘kept’ for or from their peoples were returned to the people.

There are arguments that like the Ibori case wherein his predecessor refused to ‘cooperate’ by turning in the account records of Delta state to the EFCC, Abia people and government seemingly refused to cooperate with investigations all through the 12 or so years that the investigations leading to Orji Kalu’s conviction took.

The argument continues that Abia people celebrated Orji Kalu by sending him to the Senate to represent them, and therefore the judge was right in sending the stolen assets to the federal government, as if assist the federal government defray cost of prosecution of the former governor over such a long time.

We believe the decision to forfeit assets seized from Orji Kalu to the Federal government of Nigeria may not have been taken lightly. We notice however that that decision did not seem to take into consideration antecedents set in the return of the Abachan and Alamieyeiseghan cases.

In the case of the Abacha monies returned to Nigeria by the Swiss circa 2005, the monies were re-looted by the government, necessitating the Swiss to insist that the second tranche be held in trust for the Nigerian people.

If the Abia monies that have been forfeited to the federal government can be held in trust for the people of Abia, some sort of justice would have been done especially with the precedence set with the Alamieyeiseghan, and irrespective of the Abian faux pas in ‘supporting’ a former governor who ‘kept’ monies for the people in his bank accounts.

We believe that for justice to be done, such monies as have been forfeited to the Federal government from recovered assets seized from politicians such as Abacha, Alamieyeisegha be put in trust for the people they were stolen from, and not seized from them as punishment.

Like the recovered and returned Abacha loot being distributed to poor households in Nigeria, the Orji Kalu loot should be disbursed or distributed to the poor people of Abia state.

What the federal government can do to recover costs for prosecuting the former governor is to quickly work with the National Assembly to pass the Proceeds of Crime bill into law and appropriate the fat salaries and constituency allowances that the former governor will continue to receive as senator (N18million monthly for the next 3 years), as proceeds of crime. That amount can defray costs of prosecuting the former governor.