That $50,000 theft at APC headquarters

RECENTLY, reports indicated that there was unease and confusion at the headquarters of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The disturbance arose over the whereabouts of a certain sum of $50, 000.  The thief, who may or may not have been an insider, had apparently plotted his scheme with care, vanishing into thin air before the bedlam broke.The incident reportedly led to the sudden dismantling of the canopies set up for the sale of expression of interest and nomination forms to aspirants seeking APC ticket for the various positions in the 2023 general election. Such is the nature of life in present-day Nigeria.

Reacting to the incident, the party claimed that the stolen money did not belong to it. Its National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, said: “On Wednesday, April 27, 2022, a sum of $50,000 was reported lost by an individual around the entrance gate of the National Secretariat of the party. To be clear, the lost money does not belong to the party. In any event, the fee for the said forms is set and denominated in naira not US dollars. The loss is neither connected with proceeds of sale of forms nor with relocation of the venue for the collection of Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms from the secretariat grounds to the International Conference Centre.”

If it is surprising that such a huge amount of cash was stolen at the APC headquarters in Abuja, it is even more shocking that there was no CCTV put in place to monitor proceedings. Why would a national political party be so lax in its security arrangement, especially given the vast security threats that Abuja and all parts of the country have had to contend with for years? Is that a deliberate act? If such a humongous amount of cash could vanish into thin air at the APC headquarters,  it is clear that a lot of cash with unclear objective comes to its secretariat. Sadly, the party is apparently treating the incident as a minor issue in a country where the masses live on less than one dollar per day, a country rated as the global capital of poverty. Besides, if the money did not belong to the party, then why did Morka not name the said owner? And what was he/she doing with it at the APC secretariat? Why was he/she not asked to disclose the source of that money, and the purpose it was meant to serve?

The integrity of any administration lies, among other things, in the strength of its adherence to its own policies regarding public finances and other matters. In this regard, it is saddening that the present administration has, like its predecessors, continuously fouled the air since its inception in 2015.  Keeping or appearing with such a huge amount of cash at the secretariat certainly runs contrary to the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), not to mention the apex bank’s monetary policy targeted at curbing the dollarisation of the economy. It is a contravention of  Section 15  of the CBN Act 2007 which provides that the unit of currency in Nigeria shall be the naira, and of Section 20 (1)  of the same Act which stipulates that the currency notes issued by the CBN shall be the legal tender in Nigeria. Besides, there can be no doubt that holding transactions in foreign currency at the headquarters of the ruling party is a vote of no confidence in the naira. It can never be proved that the money was for mere decoration or artifice.

And just so we are clear, the unfortunate incident at the APC secretariat is not peculiar to the party: it is indicative of how the political parties in the country run their affairs. They are ethically and morally bankrupt and decadent. They are all about money and material gain and they lack empathy for the common people on whose behalf they are supposed to be working and whose interest they are supposed to protect. To say that we are disappointed is an understatement. Nigeria’s political future is bleak indeed.

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