 A federal high court judge, Okona Bang, revealed the two roles of two Nigerian banks played in the two billion Naira Pension Front, perpetrated by a former chairperson of the defunct pension reformed tax force PRTT, Abdul Rashid Meina. It was also reported earlier that the judge sentenced Meina to eight years' imprisonment in his judgment at the end of a two-year trial. Joining us to assess the journey so far is political analyst Biodu Shomi. Thank you very much Mr Shomi for joining us. It is my pleasure. Thank you for having me. It almost seems to me that every time this issue is visited pensioners have their blood boiling because of course this has to do with pensions. But looking at the story of Meina starting from 2013, let's do a build-up up until today before we start talking about his sentencing. Well, the former pension boss Abdul Rashid Meina, who is now a convicted, has a very long history of trying to evade justice. From the moment when he was detected, there was almost a culture of infinity surrounding him. The authorities seemed unwilling to move in to deal with him. Then we have his escapees, you know, running to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Only to be discovered, he later returned to Nigeria. There was an attempt to be integrated back, and that led to public outcry. He was forced to flee the country again, he ran to Niger Republic where he was finally caught and then, you know, sent back to Nigeria. Meanwhile, his son was also put on trial because of his capabilities in the fraud which he perpetrated. But surprisingly, when Meina got to Nigeria, many people were expecting charges of 2.1 billion Naira pension fund thefts. The authorities, the prosecuting authorities, the Economic Financial Crimes Commission, preferred charges bordering on money laundering against Abdul Rashid Meina, and which carries a maximum of 14 years in prison. And it's quite very disturbing that for a man who stole billions of money, of pensioners' money, some of them have died in the process of not being able to assess their pension, only to be treated with treachery. You can imagine the situation where a man who was entrusted with public office to care for the most vulnerable people in our country, those who have served their country. You know, police officers who have served their country cannot be only to be let down by the safe officer and for the judge to impose 80 years out of the 40 years. That is very disturbing. The other disturbing aspects, you know, it's just the issue of the prosecution. Why money laundering charges, why not, you know, theft, you know, and, you know, the fraud ensure that he stays a long time behind bars. And that's quite very important. In the case of the judge, his hands, the hands of the judge might be tied. And given the fact that he's money laundering, but it is in a scheme to find and have great sentence for him, rather than a stiffer sentence. So I think the court should appeal that, while also refining new charges of theft against Aburashipan. Now, you pointed out the issue of reluctance on the part of our governments and, you know, the authorities in dealing with this issue. Let's not forget that at some point in the lifespan of this case, he was given a slap on the wrist at some point, which made him go to Dubai. So now that we at least have gotten some form of a sentencing, should we be expecting any more from the government? Because you're saying that the EFCC should be able to appeal. But if the government of the day or the system in itself doesn't feel the need to push further, why should the EFCC be trying to appeal to see if they can get more charges? Because it looks like a case that he should have multiple charges on it. Yes. Well, I'm not even asking for appeal of the sentence of the judgment. It's appeal of the sentence, eight years, that the Court of Appeals should be deemed that awkward. Given the gravity of the offense committed by him and the fact that he was in the occupying public office, which demands huge trust from him and he did let them down. So that is the basis for acting for a review of the sentence of not of the judgment. Then, yes, it is understandable that government seems to be very reluctant, at least that's the impression given to actually process him through the criminal justice system. Should that be the case, at least he's been convicted on money laundering charges, then the maximum penalty, the steeper penalty should apply. So because of that, one would not expect the state actors to try and prevent that from happening. They may even want to prevent new charges of pay being prepared against, but at least for the one he has been convicted, he needs to get a deal served, which he deserved of the law. And that is the fact. The other angle, again, which we should not forget is the role of the banks. The banks themselves play the role in this problem. I am not advocating that we should sanction the bank by closing them. We cannot scot and ennose in order to spite our face. We have thousands of people employed by these banks. What the government needs to do is to prosecute the executive directors responsible for those decisions and they start responsible for it. Why would allow the bank to continue to function as normal, not to disturb the economy? We can go to the extent of sanctioning the bank, finding them heavily as a corporate body. But individual officers responsible, you know, playing the role in the conniving or polluting or conspiring with the theft of public wealth should be sanctioned heavily. Process through the criminal justice system. Let them approach the actions through the judge and then let us see what the judge says. I want to do a quick follow-up on what you're saying about banks and, you know, people being sanctioned. We do not have a system where, you know, there's a flagging of sorts when monies that are not supposed to... Because a bank obviously knows how much money you would make, you know, how much money would come in. And even if they do not know, if monies are outrageously coming into an account, we do not have that system as opposed to outside of this country where they could flag it and investigate how these monies, the source of these monies, yesterday, just to digress a bit. Yesterday, Senators Arlene Dume was urging the presidency to sign the wealth access. I can't remember exactly what it was, but he was asking that the government... The president of the world. Yes, he was asking that the federal government put that in place. But we already have so many things that are similar to this in our constitution, but the problem is obviously how we can enforce this. So it's not necessarily having laws in place, but do we enforce it? That's number one. Now, on the part of the pensioners, the people who have been at the receiving end of these particular fraud and this may not situation, do we have to wait for the state to do everything? What about these ex-pensioners filing a lawsuit? What about those who are not even ex-workers, people who also are part of a pension scheme, the contributory scheme, can they also press charges of sorts to make sure that justice is done? Yes, your question is too full. Well, let me start with the last, which is about the role of pensioners themselves. The way the pension system works is very clear. They will get paid. What happens is they will get paid eventually. Those who may not get paid, and those who are currently working, police officers currently serving, may end up in future not being paid because the way the pension system works, whatever money the Dutch has made now, is sent into the pension force and that money is used to pay the retired police officers. The question is when it comes to those who are serving today, will they have the money there? Will the government be good enough to step in to say, look, there's a shortage of pension cash, which is caused by Mahina? Will the government be good enough to put their money back? That is the commitment which we are yet to have. The federal government needs to assure the pensioners that whatever has been lost due to the activities of our pensioners will be... Show me, I think that we've lost connection, but if you can hear me, you can go again. I can hear you now. Go ahead. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. What the pensioners would not hear is that federal government, given the clear on the typical commitment that whatever shortage is arising as a result of Mahina's action will be paid back to the pension fund by the federal government. That is very key. That will reassure the pensioners that even... And those were in fact, whatever the return that we wanted to hit up their pension needs in future. That's important. What's your second question? Yes. I was talking about... Yes. I was talking about the Senator Dume's ask of the federal government. Okay. About the laws. Yes. We already have laws. We have so many laws in place. What he wants to do is to... You know, further base the bar for criminals. Make it more difficult for people who acquire wealth, you know, without anybody being able to talk about their source of income, you know, to account for it. That is currently... It's not illegal. If I have one billion Naira in my account, as long as it's not a proceed of money laundry, as long as they cannot leak it to any crime, then I can as well keep the money and enjoy it. The reason is this, because the presumption of innocence is on the part of the accused person. The second reason for that is also whoever alleges must put it. So if I have a billion Naira in my account and you want to prove that I stole money or this money was gotten illegally, the body means not on me to prove that I got the money illegally. The body means on you making the allegation to prove that I did not get the money properly. When it comes to the role of the bank, the same thing as it affects the individual affects the bank. We, as a nation, should worry about the role of banks in our own economy. When you have a situation where banks, you know, who rather let low people, 30 percent interest rate, who wants to go into the productive sector of the economy. And then eagerly and gleefully receive money stolen from our public wealth. We should be worried about that. We should begin to ask questions. Why are banks charging 30 percent? How many people are borrowing? What is the percentage of cash which are lushing? You know, they are in the banks. Nobody is borrowing them. I remember about a year ago, the 6 a.m. this morning, that it was sanctioned banks. They are not loaning people. But how many people will be willing to take a loan at 30 percent? What do you want to do if you take a loan of 100 million for a productive activity, maybe in the agricultural sector or to build an industry? The first 30 million is interest in a year. You pay 30 million interest first without even paying a dime of that loan. So what it means is how much profit are you expecting? Will the economy generate in a way that you'll be able to pay the tax? So therefore the banks do not rely on loaning, which is a key function of banks, loaning money for the economy, so individuals engage in the economy. Because that is why they keep it at 30 percent. But they are eager and willing, they even lobby to receive money stolen from the economy. Even when they know that there is no productivity to justify it on the part of individuals, like a manor. So it's very worrying why we allow our economy to run in this way. So don't mention the forcing of getting the banks to come down to single-digit interest rate, while also cracking down on banks involved in this kind of process. Okay. Well, this is something that of course needs to be discussed on a more public forum other than TV. I want to say thank you. Bioto Shoumi is a political analyst and he's been talking with us. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you. All right. Well, we'll take a quick break now to see what Nigerians have to say about the appropriate jail time for the pension fraud. And when we come back, I will give you a pitch, just a little bit of my take. Eight years is not enough. I think 20 years are both. Yeah. Yeah, because pensioners, someone who has served the country for more than 30 years from right, right? Yeah. So someone who has just come and stole the old pension. So what's left? It's nothing. So eight years is just like eight days. Okay. If it's someone that I see that is on the part of recovery repentance and all of that, eight years might be sufficient. But if he's a diehard person who's really had not to crack, you could extend it. To me, eight years is not fair enough. I would have said maybe they take it to 15 to 20 years. Why? Because these people have worked hard for that money. And no, if you want the first system, we should look into politicians taking money from pensioners' accounts and other schemes as such. So eight years to me is not enough. That is really small, you know. That is like stealing people's livelihood. You know, you work for so many years, save a lot of money and you think that, okay, at the end of this year I should be able to fend for myself, get my money and somebody else now come and steal that. In fact, life imprisonment. Not at all. That's not enough. If you have stolen a lot from the public, especially pension fund, something you are supposed to lay long when you retire from work and somebody stole the money, then I'll be looking at, even life imprisonment is not bad. But sometimes you look at it from the two sides. What is the law saying? And what are we getting? Well, here's my take. I really wonder half the time if we really are walking the talk and we say that we want things to change in this country. I ask because on one hand we are asking for the head of the man who stole pensions money from people who have worked their whole life and start up money to be able to fall back on it. But then the banking systems, the banks are very happy open to taking these monies without questioning where these monies are coming in from. Now, I'm very glad that the judge in this case had said that there is a moral decadence that is eating deep into the fabrics of the Nigerian system that we need to do away with. Because for once we could not necessarily put a pin on this issue and say, this is a fraud, a pension fraud. Why are you hanging the man for money laundering? He stole money that was meant for pensioners. Let's leave that on one hand. Now, we're also looking at the voting system. We're asking every single day that we want free for incredible elections. But yet, the same people, the same Nigerians that are asking for good governance that want Nigeria to change are the same people who take monies from politicians and go to polling units to give 3,000, 2,000 to the voters and say, vote for this party, give me your card number. But you want to change. Have you asked that politician if he has what it takes to run for that office if he does have what it takes, then why is he not doing his groundwork and let the people who are voting decide who would win instead of trying to induce people. So whether we say the politicians are corrupt or Nigerians are corrupt I think we're all part of the problem until we all start to ask ourselves the right questions as to if we really want change and if you do want that change then you need to start doing the right thing. In other words, you that person that is a party agent you that person that is a foot soldier for that politician you that person who is a mother, father, friend, family member of these politicians who are corrupt and are giving out monies to people to induce them to vote you're part of the problem. Until you stop, we will not have the kind of Nigeria that we deserve. I am Mary Annakul. Have a good morning, a good evening.