Chinua Achebe wrote in his book The Trouble With Nigeria that “anybody who can say that corruption in Nigeria has not yet become alarming is either a fool, a crook or else does not live in this country”. This was in 1983 during the reign of Lieutenant-General Mohammed Inuwa Wushishi, who was removed from office by General Muhammadu Buhari in the same year. Yes, this very President Buhari, he has been head of state in Nigeria before.
This might explain in part Buhari’s success in tracking down and recovering the money stolen by his fellow military rulers of his country. One of these is Sani Abacha, the man at the helm between 1993 and 1998. For a public servant, Abacha did exceedingly well financially. Transparency International estimated that he had hidden $5billion belonging to the people of Nigeria in his Swiss bank accounts.
Switzerland returned $320 million of that to Nigeria in December 2017. This week, an additional $500m (5.5% of the federal budget of Nigeria!) was reported to be on its way.
When Achebe was writing his criticism of Nigeria, he might have been talking of every corrupt politician in Africa and the world.
However, the idea that one man could have stashed away more than a quarter of the budget of a country he was supposed to manage is cringe-worthy. In 1998, $500m was worth more than $750m in today’s money.
Nobody knows how much more of Abacha’s loot will be recovered and restored to Nigeria. Yet, the bigger story than what Buhari will use this money for is how many more African countries are countenancing Abacha tendencies today; or what it will take for us to expunge them before they do more damage.
South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Angola, South Africa; take your pick. For every resource-rich country on our continent, there is an Abacha in charge or hanging around the rulers in an attempt to fleece the people of what is rightfully theirs.
This week, The Sentry - a watchdog co-founded by actor George Clooney and based in Washington - stepped up efforts to put pressure on Kenya and Uganda to stem the flow of illicit outflows from war-torn, oil-rich South Sudan.
While the supporters of President Salva Kiir and arch-rival Riek Machar are hacking each other to death back home, they are apparently buying homes in upmarket suburbs of Nairobi and Kampala. They are planning their retirement in foreign countries, yet posing as leaders back home.
Angola and Zimbabwe, both recently rid of their 30-year-plus rulers, have approved measures to encourage the repatriation of monies held illegally abroad. They hope that those previously involved in Abacha tendencies will come clean or face prosecution.
South Africa, still reeling from what we called state capture, is pursuing its own programme to recover stolen money that is mainly deposited or invested in foreign banks or assets. The truth is, if you are African you have been captured from the beginning of time.
With a little help from developed countries and duplicitous multinational banks, Africa’s strongmen steal from their own to finance development and further industrialisation in already industrialised countries. Banks have turned a blind eye for decades.
Thankfully, advancements in information technology, the spread of global terrorism, slower global economic growth and the power shift from the West to the East knocked sense into the heads of the powerful, forcing them to think and act multilaterally. This megatrend gave us such collaborative agreements such as the Extractive Industries’ Transparency Initiative and the Kimberley Process to stem the blood diamond trade. It furthermore strengthened the hitherto ineffective Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
That is how countries such as Switzerland ended up returning Abacha’s loot; and several canaries started singing from the Panama Papers, exposing all sorts of tax evasion and international criminal rings.
Africa stands fortuitously poised to rid itself of its resource curse and toxic leadership. Nobody else will do it for us.
* Victor Kgomoeswana is the author of Africa is Open for Business; media commentator and public speaker on African business affairs, and a columnist for Destiny Man - Twitter Handle: @VictorAfrica