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Gowon Stole Half Of CBN When He Left Power – UK Lawmaker
A member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, Tom Tugendhat, has called on the UK government to punish Nigeria’s government officials and politicians who plunder and siphon the wealth of the country and hide the ill-gotten wealth in foreign countries.
Tugendhat, a Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, made the call during a debate on petition demanding for sanction of Nigerian government over the killing of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll-gate.
In October, thousands of citizens, especially youths, thronged to the streets across the country to demand an end to police brutality.
The protest took an ugly turn when soldiers stormed the Lekki toll-gate and opened fire on the protesters in order to disperse them, leaving many dead and others injured.
Contributing to the debate on petition against Nigeria government for its role in the #EndSARS protest, Tugendhat said what’s happening in Nigeria is a tragedy and things are falling apart, noting that the problem Nigeria is grappling with is not external domination but corruption and violence.
He made reference to China Achebe’s things fall apart and how it chronicles the difficulties of changing generation living together.
Tugendhat said “There may be some debate about this, but I argue that the greatest book in the English language is “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, the great Nigerian writer. The beauty of that book is the way it explains the challenge to changing generations of living together, and the way it speaks about values falling away and community being eroded by outside pressure.
“What we are seeing in Nigeria today is part of that story. It is a tragedy that we are all watching and witnessing. As we see things falling apart, the pressure this time is not foreign colonialism, but corruption, violence and attempts at control. I totally agree with my friend, the hon. Member for Edmonton, that we need to call out the corruption and use the powers we have in this country to stop those who are profiting from the wealth of that great nation, and hiding it here.”
Tugendhat also said Yakubu Gowon, former Nigeria military head of state, who rule between 1966 and 1975, stole half of the money in the country’s apex bank when he was ousted from power in a military coup
” Some people will remember when General Gowon left Nigeria with half the Central Bank of Nigeria, so it is said, and moved to London. We know that today, even now in this great city of ours, there are some people who have taken from the Nigerian people and hidden their ill-gotten gains here. Sadly, we know that our banks have been used for those profits and for that illegal transfer of assets. That means that the UK is in an almost unique position in being able to do something to exert pressure on those who have robbed the Nigerian people.
“This puts a particular onus on my hon. Friend the Minister, and I know she knows it. Using Magnitsky sanctions today is not just about protecting Nigeria, although it is. It is not just about respecting Nigerian young people who have been robbed and murdered by the SARS units. It is about protecting the United Kingdom, because what happens in Nigeria matters fundamentally to us here.
“This country is the third country of the Commonwealth and has 200 million people. It will be the great economic powerhouse of Africa and one of the great economic powerhouses of the world. Its wealth is not just in the oil of the Rivers state, but in the imagination and creativity of its people, as witnessed every day in Nollywood and, perhaps more my style, at the great University of Jos. It is a country that gives so much to the world already, despite the fact that it is ill governed, brutalised and robbed. Imagine what it could give if the Plateau state was not a scene of conflict and anti-SARS movements, but instead was the global centre of learning that it really and truly could be, and indeed was up until the 1960s.”
Tugendhat said the #EndSARS protest provides UK the opportunity to do something genuine in the interest of, not only Nigeria, but Africa and the British people.
This is an opportunity for the UK to do something real, not just in the interests of Nigerians, although it would be, and not just in the interests of Africans, although it would be that, too, but fundamentally in the interests of the British people. This is a moment when the petitioners have got it absolutely right. They are not just arguing for the rights of young Nigerians who are claiming their own rights, but for the rights of democrats, free people, and honourable people everywhere. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and her colleague, the Secretary of State, will listen, look at the sanctions regime and choose carefully where they apply
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