All around the country are people who are daily hungry, starving, suffering, and going through great difficulties, yet we continue to have discoveries of hidden raw cash that were left to rot by public officials…
•It is only in Nigeria that we see such inhuman display of evil by supposed public office holders who are meant to SERVE the masses…
•There are still countless of such raw cash hidden out there in different parts of the country, which were stolen by corrupt public officials. Yet, all around them are still pictures of poverty… Who has cursed Nigerian?…
I was greatly vexed in mind when yet again, I saw a few months ago a video online which noted that unspecified huge amounts of foreign currencies including decayed US Dollars, British Pound Sterling amongst others, were recovered at the house of a deceased Custom Officer in Kano State. The heaps of the recovered currencies were said to have been buried beneath the earth surface and wrapped in cellophane bags. This was uncovered during a renovation work at the said house in Nigerian Custom Quarters located close to Federal College of Education (FCE) Kano. The currencies were allegedly buried by the deceased officer when he was alive, without informing relatives or colleagues. Though, the name and rank of the Custom officer was not made public, but it was gathered that the deceased was one of the Senior officers at the Kano office of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS).
This incident, reminded me of a similar online video that went viral in 2020, which showed millions of Nigerian Naira with a little margin close to a billion, reportedly discovered in a hideout, Six (6) years after it was looted and hidden, but already rotten and useless. The said bundles of rotten cash, were stacked in different sacks, and were obviously kept either underground or in a toilet suck-away pit which made it rot six years after it was hidden.
All I could think of in all of this, is how many Nigerian lives these monies could have changed and transformed if only it was rightly put to use by the person(s) who must have stolen and hidden them. Right now, the persons who hid these monies could not use them, and Nigerians could not use them too as they have all become useless due to some persons greed. We can just imagine how corrupt Nigerian politicians and public officers could be so callous, wicked and heartless towards the people that supposedly elected/appointed them into Office to serve.
While this will not be the first time that Nigerians have been shocked and bemused after huge piles of cash have been unearthed in various parts of the country, but one cannot help but wonder when will this sort of devilish act end? All around the country are people who are daily hungry, starving, suffering, and going through great difficulties in providing their simple basic needs. With no money to pay hospital bills and their children school fees, and so on. Yet, some persons would stockpile loads of cash which they evidently do not need, and allowed it to rot away just like that. This is not only shameful but greatly annoying. Who has cursed Nigerian leaders and elites as a people and nation? Who has bewitched Nigeria? It is only in Nigeria that we see such inhuman displays of evil by supposed public office holders who are meant to SERVE the masses. Who does Nigeria this thing? And why are these discoveries of bundles of hidden raw cash quite common in the North, particularly in Kano?
A few months ago, there were reports that the Kano/Jigawa Command of the Nigerian Customs Services(NCS) said it has arrested one Sabo Suleiman in possession of foreign currencies (over one million Saudi riyals and $184,000) concealed inside diapers. The Command’s Comptroller Suleiman Umar disclosed this while handing over the suspect and exhibits to the operatives of the Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC). Comptroller Umar said the suspect, Suleiman was apprehended when he was about to clear the currencies at the point of arrival through an Ethiopian airline flight en-route to Saudi Arabia. He said the suspect refused to declare the currencies, which contravene the law which stated that any traveler travelling with above $10,000 must officially declare the money. According to him, “the suspect was arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, (MAKIA) Kano on the 17th June 2021 in possession of the exhibits while trying to clear one bag sent from Saudi Arabia via Ethiopia airline flight ET941 arriving from Addis Ababa to Kano.
It was in 2017 I believe, that we had the highest number of reported cases of discovered hidden cash across the country, which makes one wonder “who do Nigeria dis thing sef for dis country?” However, we need to also understand why bundles of cash keep turning up in different parts of Nigeria?
For instance, in February 2017, $9.2m and £750,000 were discovered by Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, the EFCC, in a property belonging to Andrew Yakubu, a former group managing director of the National oil company, NNPC. In March same year, large bags of money containing bundles of “crispy” banknotes worth a total of $155,000 (£130,000) were found in Kaduna airport. And in April of that year too, a stash containing $43.4m, £27,800 and 23.2m Naira were recovered from a Lagos apartment with its owner yet to be identified. But was finally claimed by the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), whose director, Ayo Oke, stated that the money was released by the previous government to help with the agency’s “special services”. He was later suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari from his position and ordered a two-week probe into the origin of the funds. But it is believed that all of this could not have happened so quickly if it was not for the whistle-blower policy that was put in place by the government in December 2016.
In the past, whistle-blowers or not, it may have been difficult to find any large amounts of cash lying around in Nigeria. The stashes would have been cooling off in banks, or en route to various foreign destinations. But with the introduction of the “cashless policy” in 2012 by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), under Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, this placed limits on the amounts of cash-based transfers, encouraging electronic transactions instead. As it is believed that high cash usage enables corruption, leakages and money laundering, amongst other cash-related fraudulent activities. So, we could imagine the predicament of the serial looters, bribe givers and takers, accustomed to handling incredible amounts of cash. In one report, for example, it was alleged that in 2011, a whopping $466m was withdrawn in cash – raw notes and bundles – to pay a few Nigerian government officials to facilitate an International Oil Company’s acquisition of a lucrative oilfield.
The CBN’s cashless policy would have made it hard for subsequent bribe-takers to deposit such huge sums in banks. Again, the extended family, minions and hangers-on can come to the rescue. As people could open different bank accounts in the names of their siblings, aunts and uncles, fathers, nephews, spouses, in-laws, house girls, cooks, drivers and so on. So that the heaps of cash can be broken into smaller batches and deposited in these various accounts. We saw many examples of this few years ago. Those whose names the accounts were opened might not have any knowledge of or control over the transactions.
This short-circuiting of the cashless policy seemed to be working fine, until the introduction of yet another policy: The Bank Verification Number (BVN) policy. Every bank customer in Nigeria was required to have their biometric details captured and linked to a unique number that could be verified across every account and transaction they made in every bank. The first step to getting a BVN was to turn up at the bank in person. As of November 2016, the nation had billions of local and international currencies reportedly abandoned in bank accounts as a result of the BVN policy. Apparently, owners of dubious accounts are afraid to step forward and claim their riches. This somehow made Banks in Nigeria definitely no longer the best hiding place for unexplained funds. But trust Nigerian corrupt politicians/public office holders and their likes, they have already found other means, with the cooperation and collaboration with commercial banks, of starching away illicit funds either in hard currencies, cash or electronic transfers.
And like the recent reported recovered rotten cash, I believe there are still countless of such raw cash out there in different parts of the country, which were hidden by corrupt public officials. Yet, all around them are still pictures of poverty, hardship, sickness, sufferings and underdevelopment. ONE BEGINS TO WONDER IF THESE CORRUPT PERSONS ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND THE VANITY OF LIFE. Or the fact that they can die today, and all that starched away cash and monies will all become nothing but wasted papers, which ought to have been used to make life a lot better for many Nigerians out there. What a shame!
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