Maina: Banks’ complicity

AFTER protracted litigation, an Abuja Federal High Court has sentenced former chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, to eight years’ imprisonment for stealing N2.1 billion federal pensioners’ money. Whether or not the eight-year jail term is just deserts for the egregious sleaze or could serve as a deterrent to Maina’s ilk is debatable, but it is somewhat comforting that the impunity around the convict would seem to have ended. Quite a few revelations came to light in the course of the litigation. Of great significance, however, is the alleged complicity of two Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in the fraud. There were indications that the two banks acted in a manner contrary to professional ethics and the laws of the land in order to aid Maina in the perfection of the fraud undetected for quite a while.

It is rather saddening that one of the two banks was, in the aftermath of the 2015 general election,  also accused of illegally warehousing millions of dollars for Diezani Alison-Madueke, erstwhile Petroleum Minister. It was believed to have breached both law and ethical boundaries in the course of offering such warehousing services. Not a few believe that these two banks are representative of the banking sector where humongous profits are declared annually while the fortunes of the businesses they fund have continued to dip. Sharp practices and almost direct participation in criminal acts, like in the case at issue, would seem to account for the banks’ huge and  disproportionate net incomes that are hardly reflective of the country’s business climate.

The question may be asked as to the kind of system that enables a civil servant to commit this level of fraud. Yes, only a sloppy and dysfunctional system would be permissive of this monumental sleaze, but without the active connivance of officials of  some private and public institutions, the convict could not have had a field day before nemesis caught up with him. For instance, it is axiomatic that  money that is not cash cannot be laundered without the banks. Usually, criminals need the banking system to burnish the proceeds of crime before they can enter into the circulation with a similitude of legitimacy. And this felonious exercise necessarily requires the circumvention of certain processes and procedures that the average  uncompromised  official cannot feign ignorance of.

For instance, how can a single individual use the same Biometric Verification Number (BVN) for different accounts and with fictitious names? Oftentimes, what the public construes as failure to carry out due diligence by bank officials transcends a mistake of the head; it is usually that of the heart which borders on deliberate collaboration with malefactors to perpetrate crimes.  Ironically, in the instant case, it was the judge that  pointed to the complicity of banks, wondering why the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) did not charge them along with the convict. It is unclear whether or not the EFCC deliberately shielded the banks and for what reason. The judge was evidently circumscribed in the circumstances. And  since the court is not a Santa Claus, it could not have awarded to the EFCC reliefs that it did seek, let alone sentencing parties that were not brought before it.  Nonetheless, the mere mention by the judge that the banks should have been charged by the EFCC was very courageous and patriotic and we commend him for that.

It is almost certain that the impunity enjoyed by banks that breached the law unscathed will further encourage some unconscionable bank  officials  to use the instrument of their offices to repeat the ignoble role the two banks in question played in trying to criminally shield Maina from the law.  Certainly, and sadly so, the allusion by the judge to the complicity of banks which the anti-graft agency refused, failed or neglected to charge to court is an unequivocal indictment of the EFCC’s flawed prosecutorial strategy in its fight against corruption. And it is hoped that the huge slip was an inadvertent one rather than a deliberate and orchestrated seeming error aimed at achieving a mischievous end. The antecedents of the case recommend this line of thought and circumspection about  the EFCC’s seeming gaffe.  It will be recalled that the official treatment of Maina’s fraud case was fraught with irregularities which at a point culminated in his being rewarded with promotion for malfeasance, as it were. But for  public outrage and the unsparing censure by the media of the sloppy official handling of the case, Maina would have been a free man and a senior civil servant today.

There are so many infractions being committed by officials both in the public and private institutions that need to be addressed and  it is time the gatekeepers stood up to be counted. The office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice which supervises the EFCC should be interested in the real reason the anti-corruption agency failed to charge the banks with complicity in the fraud case in the face of overwhelming evidence. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), too, should show more than a passing interest in the judge’s tangential but uncomplimentary remark about the banks. The regulatory authorities need to ensure strict compliance with the rules: if there are dire consequences, the banks would not commit the crimes anymore.

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