 The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, wants senior bank executives to declare their assets. This is in line with the Bank Employees Declaration of Assets Act 1986. The EFCC had given the bankers a deadline of June 14 that was disobeyed and the commission has extended the deadline till the end of the month. The Executive Chairman of Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Mr. Dibble Adinira, is joining us on the show this morning. Good morning, Mr. Adinira. Good morning, my sister. Thank you for having me. Alright, we know that this act has been in place for many years now, but what we've seen is that bankers have disobeyed this time and time again. What do you think Bawa and the EFCC can do differently this time to ensure compliance? Thank you very much. First and foremost, everybody that has nothing to hide should not have been afraid of asset declaration. As a matter of fact, what we recommended is that all senior officers in every establishment – it doesn't have to be only financial institutions – should be ready to declare their assets and the authorities are supposed to verify these assets. We expect the Code of Conduct Bureau to have taken the bull by the arm and insist that asset declaration should be a precondition for appointments to any public office, especially when it has to be at the level of senior officers. But that is not to be because all agencies in Nigeria are very weak. Technically, they don't seem to be well-trained. They don't seem to be well-funded. They don't seem to be well-motivated to do the right thing. And that is the reason why Lansity persists. What I think that EFCC under Bawa should do differently is to evoke the provisions of section 7 sub-1 or so that gives its power to investigate anybody in Nigeria that is found to be living above its means. Also, the EFCC under Bawa should activate the instrumentality of skumo that is the special control unit against money laundering and ensure that every corporate organization registers under that platform so that initiate financial flows can be adequately controlled. A number of private sector business owners have been arguing that the declaration of asset should apply to those that are occupying public office alone. That is not correct because most of the fraudulent practices, most of the corruption that have been taking place in public offices have been assisted by the private sector. Most of these public officials cannot launder their money by themselves. They launder through financial institutions like banks, insurance, accounting firms and so on and so forth. Several other professionals help them to launder this money. If all of these professionals and institutions are registered under skumo, they wouldn't have found it easy to launder money. What they should do differently is to ensure that the letters of our laws are obeyed by everybody with that exception. The Code of Condor Brewery that is saddled with the task of ensuring that every public official declared their asset should also be emozured. They should be given more power. Their capacity should be properly built so that they will be able to do the work without fear or favor. And they will be able to verify every asset that is declared by public officials so that at the end of the day, there wouldn't be cases of anticipatory declaration or fraudulence under declaration of assets. And the Code of Condor Tribunal should also be activated better strengthened, better fortified for the task of ensuring that everybody that comes against the provisions of Code of Condor Brewery should be properly investigated, tried and punished at its written in the books. All right. Mr. Adinero, I want to ask about, of course, still with this declaration by the EFCC, do you think this might have anything to do with the XMD of Bank PHB? Francis Atouche, who has been given a six-year jail sentence for money laundering. Is this some of the effects and fallout of that ruling? Of course, the reason why Atouche, the wife and the other person were able to get away with the crime for so long was also because the institutions that are supposed to be watching over the finances in the corporate institutions, excuse me, are not effective. If they have been efficient and effective, the crime wouldn't have even gotten to the level of tens of billions of Naira before they are dictated. And when they were detected, it wouldn't have taken so long for the investigations to be carried out before prosecution would take place, and there wouldn't have been legal gymnastics the way it happened in several courts before convictions were achieved. But because of weak institutions, because of pervasive corruption in our country, a lot of people who want to key into the corruption enclave. Once they know that somebody has hit it big in the field of corruption, a number of professionals will jump at them. Including bankers, they are ready to help them learn that money. And that must have been the reason why Atouche and his wife are able to corner such money. There are so many tricks, tactics, and ungodly strategies that bankers have devised to launder money or to corner money that they think that the owners have no access to or is not ready to use at a particular time, or the owner has died or something like that. Now, so many occasions are that members of family, beneficiary of a debt relation, will go to the bank and the bankers will bamboozle them with all the jargons, banking jargons and frustrate those who through the beneficiary of that estate with a view to cornering that amount of money that the late relatives had left in the bank. These are the reasons why many of them are stupendously rich beyond the salaries and the monument and other monuments that they are entitled to. So it is not just because of Atouche. There are several other bankers that are still being investigated and being protected by their colleagues who are in various financial institutions. So the EFCC should ensure that they leave no stone unturned. Ensure that several other bankers who have run down several banking institutions because of their selfish acquisition of material wealth, they should be brought to book the way Atouche has just been brought to book. They should do diligence after them. I mean, do diligence on them, ensuring that they present watertight cases with the view to making sure that those who contributed those money into their banks who ordinarily should be beneficiary of loans and other support from the bank do not have access to such loans and other support because the bankers themselves have cornered the humongous amount of money that they have deposited in the bank. The EFCC and other law enforcement agencies should ensure that they are adequately punished by any means that is possible. Okay, Mr. Adeniro, you've been talking about weak institutions, lack of funding, lack of training, lack of motivation and that's why we've been seeing this challenge regarding the declaration of assets. So if this is an institutional challenge, do you think that, you know, Aburashid Bawa can create a total turnaround in just the next few years that he's the EFCC chairman? No, Aburashid Bawa cannot do it alone. He has just laid the foundation for a process that is supposed to climax in stronger institutions. If every banker declares his or her asset, it will be easy to see what benchmark or where they are starting, the entry point and the exit point and it will be easy to see the difference between and justify it if the asset so declared can be justified by the amount of money that is supposed to be legitimately earned by the person involved. So it's just a foundation that he has laid, but if the foundation is solidly put together, you will bear with me that the society will begin the process of sanitization in the areas of financial delays. If bankers cannot hold more money than they deserve, it means that they will not be able to assist public officials who could have stolen from public covers to lunder their money. To lunder the money is supposed to be like presenting a filthy money as clean one in the banking books. So the bankers know how to place such money in such a way that the prime eyes of anti-corruption agencies, especially the monetary units of the anti-corruption agencies will not be able to see it as illicit transfer or illicit bank money. So he is just laying the foundation for sanitization of the monetary sector of the economy. So if it does it well, it will help us to achieve a greater heights. So also we know that Bauer gave this deadline for bankers to declare their assets June 1st, 2021. They disobeyed that. He moved it to June 14th. Bankers also disobeyed that order. He has now extended it to June 30th. If by June 30th bankers and top executives, and this is about 120 bank MDs and top executives, still fail to declare their assets, what options are available to the EFCC to ensure that they deduce it? Well, the option that is available to them is to random those who refuse to declare their assets, hand them over to the judicial section and ensure that they are properly protected because it is the provision of the law that they are violating, not that Bauer's invention. The law has always been there. It's just that those that are manning our institutions have not been able to develop adequate political will or even public will to implement those laws. If Bauer, maybe as a young man, is ready to stamp his feet on the sand of time and insist that the laws of our land must be obeyed, why not? Other institutions should support him. ICPC should also support him because, primarily, ICPC should ensure that all the inflows and outflows from all the MDs are properly monitored. And if they are monitored, those who could have dipped their hands into the public office wouldn't be able to keep it in the bank. Then, like I said the other time too, Code of Condor Bureau should also do their own work because, primarily, they should ensure that everybody declares their assets. So if you know all of this, then the courts would be the final auditor. If it were to be Code of Condor Bureau's exercise, the Code of Condor Triadwinner would be the final arbiter so that, at the end of the day, justice would not only be said to have been done, it would be seen to have been done. So, judiciary is the last hope of the common man and that is where Bauer should take them to. I think it's also important that we bring up conversations with regards like something you've mentioned, the institutions and the machinery that should checkmate corruption, not just in the banking sector now, but in every other sector across Nigeria, which we have lacked for a long time. People always talk about customs and immigration and our ports and how there's billions and billions of miles that just continues to disappear into thin air every other day. So what would you say we, as a country, on Nigeria needs to start to do to fix this machinery that should make it difficult to steal, not, of course, be trying to prosecute after stealing and hoping that the courts will be able to do justice to people who have been suspected of stealing. So how can we fix the machinery that makes it difficult to steal, to steal not just in the banking sector, but in every other MDA and in the political sectors also? Exactly where I was going before I was directed back to the banking sector. I was saying that every public official, every senior officer, even in the private sector, must be made to declare their assets from time to time because if they don't do it, private sectors are the ones helping the public sector to learn that the money is stealing from public office. Banking sectors generally belong to the private sector, only maybe central bank and a few other, maybe industrial bank and institutions like that belong to the federal government and state government don't even seem to have any bank. So most of these people in the private sector are other professionals. I mentioned it the other time, like lawyers, like accountants, like bankers, like estate developers, they help these people to learn their money. Most of the buildings you see around are not just because the owners need those buildings, but they do not find it easy to keep the illicit money. That is why they invested in estate acquisition or construction. So these are ways by which money are learned. And the prying eyes of the EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies should not neglect those other sectors. Also, all of the other agencies like customs, like NAVDAC, like all the regulatory agencies, law enforcement agencies, and security agencies should also be monitored, including the military because we have had several accusations against the military that the money that were made to provide for the soldiers that were fighting the war have been pocketed by those who have access to it. So all of these people should be under a perpetual watch of the anti-corruption agency. There should be interagency cooperation so that if somebody stays somewhere, he will not be able to lunder it through another means. So if this is done, there will be effectiveness in the application of all of the legal framework that have been on the ground. For example, all of the institutional framework or maybe legal framework, or what do we call it now, that have been put in place like TSA, like BVN, like School Moon that I mentioned the other time, like Act 2, if they have been working well, it will be difficult for people to commit corruption crimes. Like you said, agencies should be more proactive rather than finding those who have committed the crime with a view to taking them to court. If they are proactive enough, they will have monitored the financial movement within the economy to ensure that illicit financial flows are properly controlled and that will have reduced the funding of terrorism. And that will have kidnapped the boundary tree that we see in our country. It will have also controlled the level of insecurity, brought the level of security in our country under perpetual control. So if TSA has been allowed to work, nobody, no public official will have been able to open a separate bank account apart from the federal account with the view to taking in revenue that should be accrued to the federal government. If Act 2 has been working, Act 2 is anti-corruption and transparency unit of ICPC, they are supposed to have a desk in all the MDAs. If these have been working, it means that if flow and not flow of resources in every MDA will be monitored by that agency. And that would have made it difficult for anybody to engage in illicit procurement or contract awarding without the agency knowing and taking the proper action even before it becomes too late. We started earlier. Apologies to catch you short, but just to quickly wrap up, basically you're saying that asset declaration is somewhat the ultimate way to check corruption in Nigeria. But what would you say other public officials can learn from the Water On Again case regarding falsely declaring their assets? Well, I've mentioned it that if institutions have been working, when a public official declares an asset, the CCB Code of Conduct rule should verify if it was a true declaration or false declaration of assets. It can also be anticipatory declaration when the public official knows that it's likely to steal when it gets to the public office. So if they are verified, it will be easy for the agency to know what was declared when the public official was going to the office and they will also declare when they are getting out of office. So the difference will be measured against what the official earned when he was in the office. So it will have made it easy for anti-corruption agencies to determine whether the official had helped himself to an amount that is not supposed to get into him or he has been an honest person. And what we have recommended is that for those who have worked with all honesty, they should be rewarded, not that they should be... I mean, those who have destroyed our economy through illicit transfers and all of that, financing terrorism and all these illegalities in our land should be... We should be careful not to award criminals. Those who have assisted in aiding and abetting criminality should be isolated for punishment. Those who have been very honest and those who have been shining examples of what public office holders should be should be the ones that will be awarded and those who are nominated for national honours should be subjected to public scrutiny so that if people have any allegation against them or maybe they have information about what they have done wrongly in the past, they should be brought to the fore and such people should not be given national honours and that may be a way of stemming the tide of corruption in our country. It is not only a set declaration, it is also honest, modest living. If people are not so greedy, if people are not so avaricious, those that are coming up will not take an example that they want to be, to endlessly reach overnight and there will be less of Yahoo Yahoo and all these Yahoo plus that we have been seeing all over. I mean, there would have been less richer killing, some people killed for nothing. They think that they will get rich overnight and at the end of the day, they don't get rich anywhere. It is because they are looking at the examples of those who have conned our collective patrimony that should not be allowed to host way in our society any more. Thank you very much. It seems like there's a lot that needs to be done from what we were talking about this morning, but we hope that we can continue this conversation and of course effect change at some point. Thank you for speaking with us this morning. It is my pleasure. Thank you for having me. All right. All right, next up we'll be speaking with someone from the education sector to discuss a strike that ASU is threatening to go on over the non-payment of salaries. Do stay with us.