--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
A Billion is a lot of money. I have no idea how many billions make a trillion. Or how many of Africa’s Zimba trillionaires are invested in the China Stock Market…
If the Nigerian lootocracy’s top sixteen were richer during the period 1981-1984 when the price of oil was much lower than the last sixteen years and up to five months ago, then that alone is more than sufficient reason for taking the contents of this list with a pinch of salt. I assume that some of them must be operating some lucrative mines, here and there in Africa. And their penchant for owning big hotels and mansions…
In that July 26, 2013 BBC Hardtalk interview Governor Rotimi Amaechi did not deny that Nigeria’s national treasury was losing a billion dollars a month to oil thieves, in fact the rest of the programme was an impressive analysis of the dynamics of the thievery
There is no alternative to concluding that currently, Nigeria’s richest crooks /professional politician looters are surely richer than the sums of money attributed to that so called top sixteen and we are to take it as for granted that they don’t stash away all of their stolen eggs in one basket.
The sums of money owned by members of that list, could be accurate in so far as those individual bank accounts are concerned, but looters are usually cautious about where they stash their ill-gotten loot – and since they are aware of precedent and praxis, they know that there are other much safer bank and equity hideouts not only in Switzerland and many other places where their goods would be less likely to be “betrayed” to INTERPOL and other bounty hunters.
At some point during the presidency of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah (Sierra Leone) it was rumoured the US authorities had a list of corrupt politicians who would not be granted visas to visit the States. I don’t know whether the list was ever made public (or if indeed it was a fictitious list and a rumour without substance) but after that the only game in town was speculation as to who was on that list and the only way for any member of the corrupt elite to prove his or her innocence was by making a trip to the US, either for holidays or at least a medical check-up. I guess that if they could, some of them would have heavily for their names to be taken off that list. Needless to say, there are quite a few who neither took off for a vacation or even a medical check-up in the US
There are a few good examples from e.g. the Congo. I waited in vain to hear what Laurent Kabila was going to say the following day when he was supposed to be addressing the UN, since on the previous night, in the journey between the airport and his hotel his motorcade had been stopped - a hold up - and he had been dramatically relieved of some of his diplomatic baggage and their precious contents. It was to be expected that his sense of outrage would be such that he would have reported the matter to the police, like a certain drug peddler who had his wares flushed down the toilet by my good friend the club owner who did not want such wares on his premises - here in Stockholm - so Mr- Peddler was so enraged that he went to report the matter to the police that the club owner had illegally seized his drugs and flushed them down the toilet..-.
Appears mischief is at play