Posted on: 02:04 Sun, 13 Dec 2015



It has long been established that a
subordinate has no legal obligation
to obey illegal orders from his/her
superior.

This point is important as we
examine the recent nauseating
revelations about the huge sums of
money that the former finance
minister, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
and Central Bank governor, Godwin
Emefiele, made available to the now
arrested former National Security
Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.

Few days ago, Okonjo-Iweala
admitted giving Sambo Dasuki the
sum of $322m on the orders of
former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Before that the same Okonjo-Iweala
admitted spending $2bn from the
Excess Crude Oil account on the
orders of the former President.

The Central Bank of Nigeria under
Godwin Emefiele has admitted
giving Sambo Dasuki billions of
Naira and dollars on the orders of
the former president.

A good part of these monies were
given to Sambo Dasuki in cash in
clear contravention of existing anti-
money laundering laws by the
country’s chief banker. Let us put the
money laundering issue to the side
for now.

The problem with the orders from
the former President to the then
finance minister and current CBN
governor is that they were illegal.

Neither the President nor any other
government official in Nigeria has
the legal authority to order the
spending of funds that have not been
appropriated by the National
Assembly! Both subordinates knew
or ought to know that the orders they
were obeying were illegal and should
have refused to comply.

Resignation was an option. Between
these two subordinates they cost the
nation in excess of $5B by obeying
the referenced illegal orders. That is
just what we know so far and this
kind of behavior is going on at every
level of government everyday.

The arrest and prosecution of
Okonjo-Iweala and Godwin Emediefe
will send out the message that “the
president ordered the payment” is
not a defense known to the laws of
Nigeria.

Their prosecution is imperative in
light of the fact that a lot of the
money being stolen in the country is
not in the custody of the people
stealing them. They rely on a group
of people that I call facilitators in an
upcoming article to get access to
public funds in the custody of the
facilittors.

In almost every case of monies made
available to Sambo Dasuki, all those
making the money available were
following illegal orders and they
knew it. The time has come for
Buhari to beam the searchlight on
this group of people.

The commercial bankers who allow
government officials to come into
their banks and withdraw millions
and billions in cash in apparent
violation of anti-money laundering
laws are facilitators of corruption
because they know the funds are
dirty hence the need to terminate the
paper trail through cash withdrawal.

The bankers ought to be in jail too
partly because they make tracing
these funds more complicated.

To understand the importance of
subordinates not obeying illegal
orders, imagine that Okonjo-Iweala,
NNPC and Godwin Emefiele refused
to obey the former President’s illegal
orders and resigned under pressure
and spilled the beans.

With Nigerians fully aware of the
attempted fraud it would have been
difficult for their replacements to
obey the same illegal orders.

Buhari’s anti-corruption war must
involve establishing a culture that
encourages civil servants, and bank
employees to disobey illegal orders.

This will prevent our money from
leaving the treasury rather than
chasing after the money after it has
been stolen.

Before closing I will like to remind
people that a majority of the
civilians and military officers who
were tried, executed or jailed by the
post-World War 2 Nuremberg Trials
courts in Germany were obeying
orders from Adolf Hitler.

The problem was that Adolf Hitler
had no legal basis for issuing the
orders and those who ended up
being executed for obeying the
orders had no obligation to obey the
orders.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Godwin
Emefiele should be familiar with the
Nuremberg Trials. The lesson is that
a superior cannot order a
subordinate to do anything that the
superior has no authority to do
himself/herself.

Nigerians must rid themselves of the
idea that a President has the power
to order anyone to do anything in
the absence of enabling legislation.

Na oga say make I do am is not a
defense.