Memorandum submitted by Mr Femi t'Oluwa,
Odutola & Co. (Solicitors), Nigeria
HILARY BENN
SHOULD GIVE
THE WITHHELD
£50 MILLION TO
THE WORLD
BANK IMMEDIATELY
AND TENDER
A PUBLIC
APOLOGY TO
THE BANK
1.1 Hilary Benn, MP, Secretary of State
for International Development has reportedly thrown a direct challenge
to Paul Wolfowitz's leadership of the World Bank. He has withheld
a £50 million payment in protest at the conditions attached
to aid for poorer countries.
1.2 Mr Benn reportedly criticised the World
Bank's pressure on poorer countries to pursue privatisations and
trade liberalisation and went on to say, "when it comes to
economic policy choices I don't think it's right that we should
be telling other countries."
1.3 Supporting the Benn offensive, an anonymous
World Bank source had this to say—"They are trying
to impose their own economic and political model on Africa—without
recognising the reality of the situation on the ground."
1.4 Mr Benn is wrong. His action is a disheartening
reminder of a troubling phenomenon. The dwindling commitment of
many European political office holders to the world view to which
we all owe the greatest economic emancipation and personal freedoms
human beings have ever known. As for the imposition of an "economic
and political model on Africa" an American can be forgiven
for asking the world to do things the American way. All around
the world, even those who express the most blood-curdling hatred
of the West and of the United States would still, at the first
opportunity, anyone would have noticed, choose to go and live
in the US or the UK.
1.5 I will restrict my submission, to a
large degree to the African experience. Most of the countries
requiring the World Bank's facilities cannot reform peacefully,
from within. The impetus for reform must necessarily, come from
outside. Endless crises and in some cases, implosion are best
avoided by giving those in authority incentives to carry out necessary
reforms.
1.6 For historical and pragmatic reasons,
those who live in corrupt countries are not in a position to rile
against it. The developing world needs a Wolfowitz character who
can administer the bitter medicine. To take an example from industry,
when Ghosyn arrived in Japan and reduced Nissan's workforce, there
was shock all round. Nissan, of course has never looked back.
1.7 The vague call on the World Bank to
simply concentrate on building institutions is slightly disingenuous.
For, what sort of institutions can be expected in places where
persons from the world of drug-dealing can buy sufficient acclaim
to enable them occupy public positions where they appoint judges?
1.8 Corruption, the brazen, large-scale
theft of public funds is, second only to violent religious exhortations,
the most retrograde force on earth.
2.1 In the last 20 years, hundreds of millions
of people in Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore,
Costa Rica, Chile and many others have made tremendous economic
progress as a result of development assistance.
2.2 China and India have re-defined themselves
as powerhouses of high-volume industrial production. China has
notched up a US$650 billion trade surplus with the US alone. Its
docile factory workforce made up of hundred of millions of rural
poor. Productive workers, most of them earning just the very "dollar
a day" used to describe African poverty. Thousands of western
manufacturers have either torn out their plants to relocate them
in China or simply outsourced production to the Chinese.
2.3 Clearly, aid can work. But investment
from rich countries and a political commitment to order, livable
communities and prosperity works better. Business people are not
persuaded by moral crusades to invest somewhere. They invest in
livable communities where money can be made. And it is investment,
ultimately, that brings know-how, free-markets, well-organised
economic activity and prosperity.
2.4 Corruption per se is not the
reason why nothing has worked for black Africa or in politically-correct
language, the "poorest African countries". Neither is
it the authoritarian governments. Corruption is more pervasive
in India than in most African countries and decades of dictatorship
did not stop Indonesia from moving along.
2.5 The complexity and enormity of the obstacles
in the path of black African prosperity cannot be treated here.
Afro-Caribbean Haiti has remained poor for 200 years. Those who
wish to pull black African societies out of the mire may have
to be somewhat more adventurous in their approach.
2.6 We should ignore all the simplistic
talk of "telling other countries what to do" and sovereignty
and let Mr Wolfowitz do his job. These abridged examples may well
explain our dilemma. It explains how low societies can sometimes
sink.
2.7 In need of a pliant populace, usurper
and despot, Sani Abacha deliberately destroyed Nigeria's industrial
base. Busy at it with some relish between 1993 and 1998, it was
easy. He starved industry of energy—electricity from a largely
already disabled national grid and the diesel they would have
used to fuel their stand-by electricity generators. Thousands
of factories and cottage industries folded. Believing that recovery
was just around the corner and convinced that surely, no government
can wish to destroy them, many kept extending themselves with
their banks until they were prostrate. The well-orchestrated power
failure had other benefits for Abacha. Lack of power for their
pumps meant water corporations could not pump water. Then, the
refineries too were allowed to fall into disrepair. He starved
his countrymen of electricity, water, fuel, gas and gainful activity.
He successfully ground the population to a whimpering halt.
2.8 Diabolical enough to withhold policemen's
salaries for months at a time, he made sure that evil, truly,
stalked the land. Testimony given at a public inquiry after his
demise has it that he sometimes buried up to 50 people alive in
voodoo rituals he believed would keep him in power. Families
of the possibly hundreds of such victims have never been compensated.
2.9 He then thought it fit to help himself
to $5 billion of public funds. To date $3billion has been recovered
from his family. Scotland Yard figures reveal that $1.3 billion
of this was kept in UK banks. His finance minister whilst all
this was going on was one of Nigeria's most distinguished chartered
accountants. The gentleman had left his position as the resident
Managing Partner of Peat Marwick to work for Abacha. The dictator
also set up a powerful National Economic Intelligence Committee
to "nip corruption in the bud". An Economics Professor
with socialist credentials was put in charge of that. This is
the kind of charade of which African rulers and their cronies
are ever so fond.
2.10 He set Nigeria back 40 years. For every
dollar he stole, his cronies almost certainly stole five. They
will for many decades, by various means, remain in charge of the
commanding heights of the Nigerian political and economic landscape.
They got away with it.
2.11 Abacha's son, who, like Saddam Hussein's
Uday, sometimes supervised torture sessions, was held by the current
elected government for a while. Ethnic allies insisted that Abacha's
son be released without trial. Whilst lawyers wrote opinions to
each other, the Attorney-General, a principled man of the old
school, was murdered in his bed. Shortly thereafter, Abacha's
son was released and a further gift of $100 million from public
funds made to him.
2.12 Today, amongst other public monuments,
a football stadium is proudly named after Abacha. The defining
thoroughfare of Nigeria's new capital—Sanni Abacha Way—is
named after him. Abacha is still generally referred to in the
local media as "the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha".
Something akin to Germans choosing to remember Hitler, not as
a psychopathic tyrant but as "the late Fuhrer, President
Adolf Hitler". In the eight years since Abacha died, not
one voice has been heard to say that leaving his name on public
facilities is morally reprehensible. Societies are obviously different
in their values.
2.13 What Nigeria's current President recently
wrote (May 2006) of Abacha's government and its total capture
of society and our media is quoted in extenso—"Nigeria
. . . was reduced to a police state . . . where intimidation,
assassination, and deprivation were the instruments of misgovernance.
The question on everybody's lips was: why ? The answer lies in
the gradual but steady erosion of moral and ethical standards
that took place during the earlier military administration of
General Ibrahim Babangida . . . civilian political leaders acquiesced
and abandoned their responsibility. As a result, the economy was
shattered during the 1980s. Whether you were a politician, a businessman
. . . the easy avenue for personal economic gain was to accept
a job from the military or to seek favour from or support from
the military. With the pillaging of society and the destruction
of moral and ethical standards, those who might have been expected
to try to sustain such standards—the by-now bought-up, co-opted
and corrupted members of civil society: politicians, intellectuals,
journalists, business people—made excuses . . . . . .
The press and publishers who were not directly
under government control were corrupted; they in turn hired and
corrupted writers who pretended to be objective and independent,
but who vigorously and viciously attacked opponents of the military
regime. " (Emphasis mine).
2.14 The irony of the President's write-up
appears alarming when we remind ourselves of the following facts.
The said, General Ibrahim Babangida is a member of the ruling
party. He remains, by virtue of being an ex-ruler, a member of
the Nigerian Council of State. The sum of US$6 billion remains
unaccounted for in public records of his tenure in office. He
is reportedly worth a few billion dollars. He has declared his
intention to run for the office of President in elections coming
up within the next few months. Notwithstanding this and other
issues, newspaper owners yearly take out full page advertisements
to wish him many happy returns on his birthday. Public monuments
remain named after him. The need for a Mr Wolfowitz becomes clearer
when it is understood that a vocal section of the media wants
Ibrahim Babangida back in office as President.
2.15 Much more than anyone would ever have
thought possible, Nigeria's current President for instance, Olusegun
Obasanjo has used the law and various institutions to discourage
the large-scale theft of public funds. Yet even he, with all the
powers of his office, can do no more than write in newspapers
against some of the better known destroyers of our institutions.
This is no tirade against corruption. In all walks of life, human
beings are extremely fallible. However, those who want to continue
with this brazen theft of public funds anticipate his inevitable
exit from office next year, with controlled excitement. (He tenure
expires after two terms of office.)
2.16 From then, we may then have only Mr
Wolfowitz to speak up for us.
2.17 Having very successfully co-opted the
media as Mr Obasanjo wrote in 2.13, corruption has made sure that
the betrayal of the public in societies like ours is total.
2.18 It is pertinent to ask what sort of
institutions would emerge on a foundation like this.
2.19 There is a simple response to Mr Benn's
simplistic notions that "when it comes to economic policy
choices I don't think it's right that we should be telling other
countries what to do". Had an Abacha surfaced in an economy
where the power sector, water corporations, energy sector, communications,
were privately-owned and housing development had a flourishing
private-sector led sector to it, he would not have cowed his countrymen
so completely.
2.20 The advent of Abacha was of course
the arrival of the evil day for Nigeria. One of the points in
favour of privatisation for developing economies is that it creates
pockets of independent authority. This then dilutes the power
and tyranny of the men who are hell-bent on larceny.
2.21 Granted, in weak societies, it may
not necessary lead to a "share-owning democracy". The
urge is always there to simply sell up the common wealth to a
motley crowd of "preferred bidders". With the conspicuous
consumption and sudden wealth of the public servants put in charge
of privatisation in weak societies, what has been going on is
anybody's guess.
2.22 Ghali Na'Abba was lately the Speaker
of Nigeria's House of Representatives. He joyfully thundered in
a recent newspaper interview—"There is no way that
you can be a politician in Nigeria and extricate yourself from
corruption. It is not possible. There is nothing you can do as
an elected representative or a minister when you go to your house
and find hundreds of people waiting for you and asking you for
one thing or the other, and because there is so much poverty you
have to continue to give them what you have, and when it finishes
you have to look for money from somewhere else to oil the system."
2.23 Poverty and this mode of discretionary
almsgiving by politicians and soldiers serve their interests most
effectively and will continue to make reform a dangerous venture.
Across Africa, it has created a mob of the destitute, always willing
to do the givers' bidding. Much in the same way as the control
of almsgiving out of offerings gave a medieval Bishop power.
2.24 The effect of all this depraved, bare-faced
robbery can be imagined. In 2004 a national paper carried a terse
half page advertisement from the University College Hospital,
Ibadan Nigeria. The hospital gave the public its last chance to
claim whichever was whoever's of the enormous pile of corpses
which had exhausted its mortuary facilities. The advertisement
went on to inform the public that a mass burial of the corpses
will be effected of corpses not collected by their next-of-kin.
Some will never believe 25 years ago it was the pride of Nigeria's
health service and the premier teaching hospital in West Africa.
People come into hospitals like this and die for lack of medication
that could be bought for $10. If a family couldn't afford
inexpensive medication, obviously, they wouldn't be able to afford
transport to a place where they could bury the body either. So
corpses will always pile up in Government hospitals.
3.1 Apart from the dearth of capital, there
are a variety of societal obstacles in the path of black African
prosperity.
3.2 A great number of those who run most
black African countries do not need a prosperous National economy
for their own prosperity. They are neither business people nor
salaried employees (in the real sense) of anybody. They are not
mortgage-paying types or shareholding types to who the finer indices
of the economy are of great concern. They are largely, simple
thieves who cream off large chunks of the national budget every
year and share what they will with whom they choose.
3.3 Many black African rulers and their
officials would appear to need a poverty-stricken populace to
live their dreams. A joint subjugation of all by colonial masters
effectively destroyed any serious notions of hierarchy based on
ancestry, learning or ability in these societies. This can mean
different things to different people but should not be considered
a point against the colonial experience per se. A major
prerogative of wealth, in poor societies has always been, a reservoir
of fawning, obedient and servile individuals. Wealth, and its
conspicuous enjoyment, then becomes the major factor by which
men can consider themselves distinguished.
3.4 Men who are accustomed to excessive
deference when in authority also realise that the deference is
due in part to their apparent state of affluence. They then feel
a great need to steal as much as they can whilst in office. This
is done to remain relevant in their societies and so that they
may not thereafter live in greatly and intolerably reduced circumstances.
Sadly, they are tolerated if not always cheered on by the ignorant
multitudes who readily accept their generosity. Those who disagree
are too few to make a difference. Widespread ignorance of the
true nature of the robbery is encouraged by two factors. Living
in amenity-starved, chaotic cities or rural poverty, the populace
is wearied by the hardships of day-to-day living. The media, knowing
that murderers are generally never caught, learns to restrain
itself.
3.5 In such societies, very little can be
changed from within. What is needed exactly is a Wolfowitz character
who would risk the opprobrium of the confused but disproportionately
vocal and say, "No !"
3.6 Since the well-documented robbery of
the past is in part celebrated, there is naturally, a great, irresistible
incentive for others to follow.
3.7 The result of all this stupendous corruption
is poverty. Poverty, as Bernard Shaw said,—"the greatest
of evils and the worst of enemies". Logically, public services
are minimal where they exist at all. On this scale of robbery,
corruption is a misnomer. Theft on this scale was bound to become
a weapon of mass destruction. Mass burials et al.
3.8 A gravely debilitating state of insecurity.
Ritual murders. The absurdity of the widely-held belief in South
Africa that forced intercourse with babies will somehow cure HIV-AIDS
pales in comparison to the obsession with ritual killings. In
January 2005 extra United Nations peacekeepers were sent to south-eastern
Liberia following violent protests by the populace against ritual
killings. The leader of Liberia's transitional government, Gyude
Byrant, must be applauded. He went on national radio on 29 June,
2005 to tell Liberians, "If you killed because you want to
make a sacrifice to be President or Senator, you fool yourself.
Stop ritualistic killings, it will not pay you anything, it will
not make you rich, it will not give you jobs". When the ambitious
or able members of a society, the ones who want to become President,
Senator, get rich or get the best jobs are the very people bent
on ritual murders, a very terrible problem exists. Not many black
African rulers think this is a problem deserving of special and
concentrated attention. Idi Amin, for instance, infamously kept
the dismembered limbs of his opponents in the refrigerator. Amin
was a laugh, but it wouldn't be quite so funny if his type are
in charge of a country and you are resident. Particularly, when
it is these characters who appoint judges and police chiefs and
there is that eerie darkness at night.
3.9 It will be nice to have all black African
rulers and public officials tell us exactly where they stand on
the question of ritual murders. South Africa is still the only
African country to have a dedicated occult-murder squad in its
police force.
3.10 Need anyone be told that manufacturing
plants are most competitive when they do three shifts. In no country
can manufacturing plants work three shifts if workers are simply
terrified of walking the streets at night.
3.11 Sadly, this is exactly how the mostly
nefarious characters who muscle their way into power at different
levels in many black African countries want things to remain.
Chaotic cities with large, no-go areas may well be the kidnapping
occult-murderers' delight. Obviously, this is hardly what investors
are looking for.
Many of these rulers cannot see the direct correlation
between their actions and the mostly needless deaths they cause.
Far too many people die of disease and misrule in Africa than
should be acceptable.
A few solutions are offered:
4.1 Gate African rulers. It is the one sanction
they all dread. What, many tyrants feel is the point of money,
if it cannot be spent in the West? If it cannot be spent simultaneously
with the enjoyment of the highest degree of personal freedom,
expression and safety ever known to human beings. What, they feel
would be the point, if your wife cannot shop for jewellery in
Zurich and clothes on Kings Road. If the rulers and officials
in these countries are faced with this simple sanction, they will
steal a great deal less.
Force African rulers and their children to live
in the cauldron of chaos and personal insecurity they nurture.
To hear of, even if they do not use them, the public hospitals
they have destroyed. Gate them whilst they are in office. Keep
them out of North America and the EU and encourage other countries
to do the same. Future access being conditional upon asset declarations
and a clean report of findings after their tenure. Gate them.
More than anything else in their lives, they need to get out of
their countries to efface the unpleasantness and dismal conditions
they have created from their minds. They will not spend quality
time on their own national issues if they are able to escape from
these issues. Gate them.
Mugabe certainly enjoyed coming to Paris. Where
in the heat of the issues surrounding the removal of Saddam, he
could at least stand next to Chirac and savour the quiet delusion
of calling the shots. These visits and the pictures of them blatantly
sponsored in the local media are imperative to every village tyrant's
portrayal of himself as a statesman. A grand fellow it is indeed,
who is able to get simple locals to see him as "opposite
number to President Bush". An endorsement of the international
community, no less.
4.2 Make African rulers and their children
give detailed asset declarations.
4.3 Put black African rulers and their cronies
whose swag exceed a certain amount, on trial for crimes against
humanity.
4.4 An International Charter enabling the
meticulous and complete, punitive dispossession of political office
holders who steal, shall we say, more than £10 million whilst
in office.
4.5 The Charter must also enable the meticulous
and complete, punitive dispossession of those who, under various
guises launder money for them.
4.6 Make the laundering of stolen African
funds a strict liability criminal offence with a mandatory prison
sentence of no less than 25 years. Hard labour, inclusive. There
are in all developing countries a large number of otherwise lawful
professionals and business people who make a living by obtaining
credit from those who have stolen public funds.
4.7 Advise African rulers to streamline
public service personnel, employing only staff we can afford to
pay. Introduce index-linked pensions for public officials. The
now common spectre of retired public servants literally begging
to be paid their pensions is awful to behold. With events like
that so commonplace, anyone working in the public service will
be a fool not to use his position to look after his future, as
best he can. Reform on this issue will require grants to offset
portions of current pension bills for a stated period. This is
not asking for too much. Afterall, apart from the $50 billion
in aid it has obtained from the American treasury since 1975,
Egypt gets a cash handout of $200 million every year to do as
it pleases.
4.8 The World Bank should now lend for the
kind of infrastructure projects—roads, power-generation
plants, water projects, sewers—for which it was criticised
in the past. China's incredible spurt of growth has shown one
thing. These facilities make an environment livable for western
companies who want to invest.
4.9 Insist on an effective Whistleblower
protection scheme in all countries receiving aid or investment.
4.10 Whatever is done, money should not
be handed over. It will only make the race for political office
more bitter, cruel and murderous. The infusion of large amounts
of money into weak societies requires a great deal of circumspection.
In a recent quarrel between two Nigerian politicians, the son
of one of the parties was butchered. The young man had a PhD.
Anger still burning, the remains of the young man's grandfather
was dug up and kicked to pieces. To help them with their enquiries,
the police, are not looking for anybody ! It will do well to remember
that the sudden gush of mineral wealth into African societies
has not increased the per capita income. It only fuelled tyranny
and murder.
4.11 Insist that an International Criminal
Commission be appointed to investigate all high-profile murders.
This is most important. It will remove the debilitating and age-long
culture of fear and silence. That culture allowed poverty-activators
to reign for so long. Remember what such an appointment recently
did for the political equation in Lebanon. We should ignore all
the glib talk of racism and sovereignty and let African-American
FBI agents do the job for the UN if necessary. Surely, if men
control a police force and it is consistently unable to solve
murders, it is reasonable to assume that they protect the Death
Squads.
4.12 Refuse all aid, loans and trade concessions
to African countries whose rulers refuse these terms.
5.1 Now, newspaper reports of Mr Benn's
decision also made mention of animosity towards Mr Wolfowitz.
Animosity based on his role as a promoter of military action to
remove Saddam. Surely, that is not a logical reason for obstructing
his World Bank policies. Besides, Saddam Hussein did hire the
scientists who could arrange nuclear and biological weapons, made
loud noises of his intention to use them aggressively and, I quite
clearly remember watching him on CNN, just after 9/11, making
a public offer of US$ 25,000 to the family of any suicide bomber
who would strike Israel. Of course his audience understood that
he also meant, the United States and its allies. To have left
Saddam in power would have been irresponsible. If it turned out
that his well-orchestrated and very public claims of military
ardour was buffoonery, the Bush Administration is not to blame
for that.
5.2 We sincerely hope that in his objection
to Mr Wolfowitz's policy, Hilary Benn may not have merely chosen
to pander to the hate-filled, knee-jerk anti-American, anti-freedom,
anti-semitic din of deep-seated covetousness that tries to brand
itself as righteous world opinion.
5.3 For these reasons, we ask the Committee
to implore the Right Honourable Hilary Benn, MP to forward the
withheld funds to the World Bank, tender a remorseful public apology
to Mr Wolfowitz and henceforth resist any course of action that
may perhaps unfairly portray him as a tool, a simple fellow-traveller
of those who are determined to undermine the efforts of the Bank.
5.4 Mr Benn's decision is morally reprehensible.
In view of his muddled and doctrinaire conceptions of developing
countries, he should ask himself if he is a fit and proper person
to continue providing leadership and guidance for the great British
public on International Development issues.
October 2006
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