“Hence, Governor Alia needs to use the services of the entire anti-graft campaign to ensure close collaboration and effective coordination to achieve seamless operations from investigation to arrest, prosecution, asset seizure, and transparent disposal. Failure to effectively manage the situation demonstrates a lack of political will to do the right thing, considering a series of relevant laws and regulations.”
One of the central problems that appears to have constrained infrastructural and political development in Benue is corruption, as experienced in the State since independence. It is important to note that Benue presents one of the most alarming and provoking microcosms of corruption cases. Since the return to democratic governance in 1999, Benue State, just like any other State has faced different faces of corruption. The level of corruption in Benue is adjudged to be responsible for the present condition of underdevelopment in the State as funds meant for infrastructural development are diverted to unproductive ventures, such as hotels, beer parlours, pepper soup joints, and fuel stations. This unfortunate situation has produced poor road networks, inadequate electricity supply, poor health care service delivery, poor primary education, and lack of potable water supply in urban centres like Makurdi, Gboko, and Otukpo. With the change of government in 2023, there are high expectations that the change will bring desirable infrastructural development. Hence, the Benue State governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, inaugurated two Asset Recovery Committees to reclaim State government properties stolen by the Ortom administration.
One of the committees is to work at the state level, while the other is at the Local Government level. The committees are, among others, mandated to find out all government assets, including lands, vehicles, houses, furniture, and other machinery. You would recall that a few days after becoming Governor, Fr. Alia denounced the looting of government property by the previous government led by Samuel Ortom. He said the PDP looted the Government House to the point that the new government under him met no single car or truck in the Government House. His visits to agencies and parastatals have uncovered the highest level of rot ever witnessed in the history of Benue State. Hence, he instituted two committees to recover assets looted by the past administration. The State Committee has members such as Hinga Biem, Barr. Joe Abaagu, Dennis Akura, Ioryue Yajir, Peter Egbodo, Joseph Ojob, Jonathan Modi, Shaageer Matins, Yuhe Jerome, Tom Ujah, and Tombuwua Terlumun The others saddled with responsibility at the local government level include Jude Tyo, Aondowase Apera, Kwaghgba Amande, Richard Dzungweve, Anthony Sende, Olofu Ogwuche, Terver Kachina, and Nick Eworo.
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The committees swung into action, and their hard work paid off. A few days ago, the Asset Recovery Commission raided a property along Makurdi/Otukpo Road and found various exotic cars. The building is said to be an automobile workshop belonging to former Governor Samuel Ortom. The Asset Recovery Committee impounded not fewer than 32 exotic vehicles believed to be owned by the former Governor. According to Punch, the committee stormed the auto workshop and removed the cars, despite resistance from workers on the site. The committee claimed that some vehicles have government marks, so they cannot possibly be private vehicles. Unconfirmed sources said the committee sent a tow truck to cart away the cars after attempts to drive them failed. Reacting to the discovery, the PDP in the State described the committee’s outing as a shameful show of naked tyranny and impunity. According to them, the shop is a private automobile workshop owned by the former Governor under his company, Oracle Nigeria Limited. The discovery and recovery of numerous vehicles at this building suggest they have swung into action. Gov. Samuel Ortom, using his usual language as a defender of the Benue Valley, accused Gov. Hyacinth Alia of subjecting him to various forms of persecution and media trials. The former Governor also claimed that his successor is on a mission to tarnish his reputation by accusing him of looting government assets in collaboration with members of his cabinet. He further alleged victimisation by his successor, saying it was a plot to torment and persecute him over retirement benefits that the government duly allocated to him before he left office as Governor. Hmmmm! Ortom, who did not pay salaries and pensions for ten months, suddenly had retirement benefits. Thirty-two exotic cars as a retirement benefit are outrageous and ridiculous. The questions begging for answers are: who truly owns the automobile workshop? Is the garage a sister or cousin of Oracle Business Limited? Can we see papers assigning proprietary rights to the owners of the cars taken from the workshop?
The fraudulent habit of outgoing governors and their aides of frantically embarking on a looting spree of government property shortly before they hand over to successors is worrisome and unacceptable in a clime of law and order. The practice has become rampant since the Fourth Republic, and this is because no one has been punished for stealing. Reports of such dirty practices have been extensive this year since new governors took over the government. In Benue State, for instance, the Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, who took over from Samuel Ortom, lamented the flagrant looting of assets belonging to the State. According to Governor Alia, he did not meet a single vehicle in the Government House, Makurdi. For him, the PDP looted the Government House to the point that the new government under him met no single car or truck in the Government House. Fr. Alia’s visit to government parastatals uncovered the worst corruption in the history of Benue State. That is not all. He alleged that he met an empty State treasury, leaving a debt profile of N187.56 billion, months of unpaid salaries, gratuities, and entitlements, and a rash of last-minute recruitment. In the other States of the federation, there is still controversy over the number of vehicles carted away from Government House, Zamfara State, as former governor Bello Matawalle retreated. Gov. Dauda Lawal Dare said the former Governor looted 17 cars, televisions, and kitchen utensils from the State capital. Operatives of the Zamfara Police Command stormed the former Governor’s residence to retrieve the vehicles. In Osun State, former Governor Gboyega Oyetola looted properties belonging to the state government in his last days in office. Governor Ademola Adeleke reported that valuable items were stolen from the Governor’s Lodge and that of the Deputy Governor in Osogbo. He lamented that from the main house to the service flats and up to the boy’s quarters, government officials carted away several valuables. They removed items like television sets, chairs, foam, electrical fittings, bed sheets, spoons, and cutlery from the lodge.
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Whether in Benue, Zamfara, or Osun, it has become a disgusting habit for outgoing occupants of government residences to violently strip them of valuable assets meant to provide comfort for the next set of occupants. And this has been the case since the Fourth Republic was flagged off in 1999. It is unclear under what arrangement this waste of resources is happening, either at the state or federal levels. But any government that allows public officers or political appointees to steal or take away items they are not entitled to pick up after their service does not encourage accountability. It means that after four years, the government will have to budget for the same properties and execute fresh procurement. Hence, in a country highly indebted to local and foreign creditors, the era of unchecked wastage of public civil servants should stop. Enough of this madness! It is worth investigating how well the public service has absorbed the monetization policy or how well it has permeated the system, particularly in Benue State. What is true is that there appears to be a return to the era of profligacy and reckless spending. For example, every government spends its budget on buying expensive vehicles for e3 Suswam reportedly spent money to buy cars for their executives. But that didn’t stop former Gov. Samuel Ortom from making his arrangements. The question needs an answer: Should we continue to press the numbers yearly to meet executive benefit needs? As the government has encouraged citizens to make sacrifices, the responsibility lies on the shoulders of Governors to show examples by cutting down on their wasteful habits. Beyond this, Governor Alia should ensure full accountability of government properties, including official vehicles in the custody of past administrations, and anyone found to strip government assets should face sanction appropriately to deter others with potential fraudulent inclinations. Henceforth, Governor Alia should set up a nearly foolproof system using a register to halt this unwholesome and financially reckless practice.
What should Benue State do with the assets recovered so they do not end up in poor storage facilities? What should the government do with these properties? The following case studies provide some examples of where governments have worked with civil society organisations and other agencies to organise mechanisms that allow for the management of asset returns in a way that benefits citizens and incorporate robust monitoring systems to ensure accountability. In 1999, Swiss magistrates ordered the freezing of $84 million held in a Swiss bank account, of which the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan claimed to be the sole beneficiary. In 2003, following a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice in the U. S., prosecutors brought charges for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of wire fraud and money laundering against U. S. citizens for having paid bribes to Kazakhstan officials in exchange for obtaining prospecting rights for oil in Kazakhstan. The Governments of the U. S., the Swiss Confederation, and the Republic of Kazakhstan agreed to return the funds. The U. S. initiated a civil action at the District Court of the Southern District of New York seeking the forfeiture of the funds to the U. S. The release of the funds was agreed to be contingent upon establishing and implementing three programs within the BOTA Program. The BOTA Program provided the establishment and administration of projects for the benefit of the poor children of Kazakhstan. The parties agreed that it would implement the program through a non-profit organisation, established under the laws of Kazakhstan and supervised by the World Bank, which would receive and disburse the funds. The Governments of Kazakhstan, U. S., and Switzerland, along with five Kazakhstanis, founded the Foundation in 2008 with a mission to return more than $115 million in disputed assets associated with corruption. They intended to use the assets to improve the lives of poor citizens of Kazakhstan and support the poor children, youth, and their families through investment in their health, education, and social welfare with conditional cash transfers, scholarships, and grants. The World Bank contracted an international non-governmental organisation (IREX) to oversee the operations of the Foundation, offer administrative support, and ensure that it met its goals. In addition, the local financial management officer of the World Bank periodically checked the account records of the Foundation. Perhaps, the Benue State government can learn from the practical experience of other regions.
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The flexibility of tools for the disposal of seized assets is equally imperative. Legislation in the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Romania, the United States, Mexico, and Indonesia allows flexibility in the disposal of seized assets. This notion accommodates when the recovered assets are not suitable for storage; when they are perishable; when they would lose value quickly; when assets (and their storage) pose a public risk (e.g., some items of flammable character); when the management of the assets is overly complex or costly; when a committee abandons assets; when they constitute instrumentality for the offense; and after a predetermined time that the recovered assets have been under seizure, or when the sale would be in the objective interest of the suspect. In Romania, the formation of the asset recovery office in the Ministry of Justice in 2011 facilitated an increase of over 300 percent in the value of already seized assets and more than 400 percent in the value of confiscated assets in subsequent years. These successes prompted the adoption of a law setting up a specialized asset management office. Canada and France have also established independent professional asset management entities to monitor the increase in confiscation orders. In line with a 2014 directive, many more European Union member countries have similarly established institutions with specialist capacity to manage confiscated assets. The cost of overseeing a seized asset can quickly exceed its value. To control costs effectively, the Netherlands introduced a central registration system, which allowed the government to take swift action when the price exceeded the asset value. Canada provides for the disposal of rapidly depreciating property. Costa Rica permits the pre-confiscation sale of assets when there is a risk of depreciation, deterioration, or rapid destruction. In the U. S., a sale is conducted either by public auction or through a private treaty.
There have been reports of seized assets like vehicles, furniture, electronics, and machinery wasting away due to exposure to the elements, poor storage, and a lack of a proper management system. The Center for Democracy and Development, an anti-corruption watchdog, puts the value of assets the EFCC and the Code of Conduct Bureau recovered in the past 20 years at about N900 billion. But it questions the efficiency of the management of those assets. What should the Benue State government do to enhance efficiency in asset recovery? Governments should organize transparent public tenders and auctions to dispose of assets. Behind every anti-corruption operation, no matter how haphazardly executed, is the desire to legally recover something stolen, diverted, misappropriated, or illicitly converted. The stolen asset is then returned to the State treasury. The standard assumption is that immoral people entrusted with public funds or assets may have converted them to their ends, hence the need to forfeit such assets and funds to the state. The gamut of conviction, forfeiture, and recovery of stolen goods sends a punitive moral message as a deterrent to future thieves. But unless we convert the residual value of anything recovered into cash to pay public coffers plundered by the originally convicted thieves, the benefit of the damage from corrupt takeovers will never be complete. Sadly, the Nigerian experience with assets recovered by anti-corruption agencies is a mixed bag. Every day, we read about the asset’s recovery from former government officials or the opposition. But what happens to the recovered assets is kept in the dark.
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Recent reports of the state of recovered physical assets by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) are more disturbing. The warehouses, stores, and parking spaces allotted by these agencies are overflowing with vehicles, generators, expensive furniture, and other assets recovered at different times from corrupt people who left them to rot. The media has reported that various thieves and miscreants have vandalized many of these stores’ assets. There are also reports of recovered residential and commercial real estate scattered all over the country that has remained under lock and key on the orders of courts acting on behalf of these anti-corruption agencies. Unfortunately, these assets have continued to deteriorate and lose value. Besides, we do not know if there was any transparent effort to maintain a verifiable inventory of these recovered assets and dispose of them through a public auction. While the federal government has sometimes resorted to selling legitimate recovered assets to raise money to augment its dwindling resources, trillions of Naira worth of recovered assets are squandered in various locations across the country.
The logical course of action that is urgently needed is a transparent process for the disposal of recovered assets. The anti-corruption agencies should compile and publish a detailed inventory of all recovered or forfeited assets with a clear indication of their locations. As a follow-up, the government should engage professional valuers to set up the asking prices of these items. Afterward, the government should organize transparent public bidding and auction sessions to dispose of these items. The banks should be the receiving agents for the proceeds of the sales, while the monies realized should be made public and paid into the federation account as other recovered monies. But the institutional arrangements to manage and dispose of these assets must be subjected to intense public scrutiny. Reports that expose poor management or illustrate that the committee sold confiscated property contrary to a court order can seriously undermine the credibility of the asset recovery program. There is also the crucial aspect of stamping out any whiff of corruption in disposing of recovered stolen assets. Meticulous record-keeping, transparent procedures, and compliance with the policies, procedures, court orders, and laws that govern the asset management process are critical for their transparency and accountability. The State government should comply with global best practices guiding the management and disposal of recovered and forfeited assets. Specialists should be on board to oversee the process. Hence, the government needs to implement a program to manage flammable and confiscated property and, where necessary, dispose of such property. A 2005 Best Practices for the Administration of Seized Assets guide by the Group of Eight States stressed this, declaring that States must ensure that strong controls for the administration of seized assets are in place. Transparency in the management of recovered assets is critical, such as using an annual evaluation of the asset management authority by independent auditors, including the examination and certification of financial records, which are made public.
The country’s slow-paced justice administration is another impediment to the seamless asset recovery and management process. The assets in question were the proceeds of the alleged crime; therefore, they could only dispose of them legally under a court order. But judicial proceedings usually stretch over several years, putting the government in a fix to handle interim forfeited assets pending the final determination of such lawsuits. Hence, Governor Alia needs to use the services of the entire anti-graft campaign to ensure close collaboration and effective coordination to achieve seamless operations from investigation to arrest, prosecution, asset seizure, and transparent disposal. Failure to effectively manage the situation demonstrates a lack of political will to do the right thing, considering a series of relevant laws and regulations. Surely, Benue State cannot, in a time of harsh economic realities, afford the luxury of ignoring such a revenue stream. Equally disconcerting is that Benue State has lost millions of naira on these assets. The time has come to achieve closure on the various cases of unproven corruption and the resultant recovered and forfeited assets. We cannot continue with waste and mismanagement while the State of Benue struggles to meet its basic obligations. Hence, if not halted, this lose-lose situation will linger until the government is willing to do the needful.
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Is it sensible that Rev. Fr. Alia releases a list of recovered loot and assets to help Benue move forward? The answer to this question is yes. The government has recovered some stolen properties stashed in different warehouses across Makurdi. How much of the loot have we recovered so far? The people of Benue deserve to hear this from the committee and not from some media houses. With the report, the people will be able to know what the government intends to do with the assets. Without delay, the government should determine how to use the looted assets. We should use the recovered properties to improve the welfare of the masses. The recovered loot should provide the necessities of life for ordinary people. Part of it should go into providing agricultural products for farmers. If we reflect on Benue’s economic condition, we will agree that agriculture is vital to economic diversification. Infrastructures such as roads, schools, and bridges are essential but quite expensive. Therefore, if we use the proceeds from the assets to provide fertilizer and chemicals to farmers, the economy of Benue State will grow faster. Hence, we will be able to budget for infrastructure in the future. As it stands, a bag of fertilizer costs N25,000. Most farmers are crying that they cannot afford it. But if the government subsidizes it for farmers, it will go a long way. We need to get our priorities right. Now that we are thinking of diversification, we must focus on agriculture.
Some exotic cars should make their way into the Benue Links transportation arena. We need a viable transportation system connecting the major cities across the country. That would help people transport goods and move around with ease. The Benue Links have collapsed because our leaders used them carelessly and in an unethical manner. Buses recovered at the workshop can be donated to Benue Links to improve their transport. The time to pay attention to this company is here and now. The Benue State government is currently owing its employees. We may also recall that the government owed several people, who have retired, several years of pension arrears. The government should use part of the money from asset recovery to pay workers their salary arrears. We cannot allow them to continue to die of hunger. Hence, to verify workers in the state civil service before the commencement of payment of the outstanding salaries, the government should start with a forensic audit to ensure that they are paying the right people. Thus, I plead with the Benue people to exercise patience and understanding with the government as they work to make Benue State a better place.
The government should use this loot to improve the lives of civil servants. The problem of unpaid salaries has been a recurrent problem ravaging the civil service in Benue State. In fact, some civil servants, like teachers, have not received their stipend for about ten months. This lackadaisical attitude by the past administration has made many teachers contemplate returning to their villages. A teacher at LGEA Primary School noted that she had to seek a transfer due to the cost of transportation she could not afford. With the fuel crisis, these teachers have been the most affected. They have had to go to work without any form of payment for months, with most using their family funds to foot their transportation bills. Hence, if there were recoveries, the government should look at social schemes that could reduce the hardship civil servants are experiencing. There is so much poverty and suffering in the land; it is the right of the government to respond with different palliative measures. I appeal to the government to consider the plight of teachers and use the recovered loot to save them from hardship. What is the essence of keeping the recovered loot when it is clear that teachers are in pain? It is time for the government to be transparent and accountable.
Government officials are quick to promise that they are talking to foreign investors. Which part of the country is now safe for investment? No part of the country is safe. So, the government should invest a substantial amount of the recovered funds in programs that would reduce the level of insecurity. We must tackle insecurity sincerely and proactively; otherwise, no serious investor would want to invest in Benue State. I support the recovery of looted properties. With the support of the Benue people, the government will recover other properties like houses and land. I also believe the government will use these properties as vitally as the recovery itself. We must not allow that to happen again. The money from the looted properties should go to targeted areas that would improve their lives. The way to use such money in a poor State like ours is to invest it in human capital development. Investment in human capital is essential because it will provide jobs to our youth. Hence, the money from stolen properties should go into relevant skill acquisition programs. We should look at the areas where we need a workforce and invest the money there. We must focus on the kind of programs essential to the modern economy.
Rev. Ma, S.J, is a Jesuit Catholic priest and PhD candidate in public and social policy at St. Louis University in the state of Missouri, USA.
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