Nigeria’s legendary lacklustre image in matters relating to corruption took a further bashing recently as two of our nationals and an Israeli were apprehended at the Lanseria Airport northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, for illegally flying $9.3 million dollars into the country.  An official of the South African Revenue Service (SARS), Marika Muller, announced that the Nigerians failed to declare the money on arrival in South Africa as required by the country’s laws, while the amount was also above the limit that can be legally brought into the country in cash. The South African National Prosecuting Authority (NASA) has since obtained an order to freeze the money. Most countries have limits on amount of cash that can be brought into them. The upper limit in Nigeria is $10,000.
Since this incident, the Nigerian government has gone to great lengths to explain that the money was to be used to purchase arms and ammunition in South Africa. It said the failure to declare the money to the authorities at the Lanseria Airport was a procedural error, and an oversight, that would be resolved and the money would be recovered.
Although the documents tendered by the three men who flew the money into South Africa on a private business jet included an invoice from a company identified as Tier One Services, to a company in Cyprus for the supply of helicopters and ammunition, the company from which they intended to purchase the arms in South Africa was reportedly said not to be licensed for the sale and rental of arms and ammunition in the country. In addition, the transaction was said not to have been registered with the appropriate South African agency, as required by laws regulating transactions relating to arms in the country. In addition, neither the government of South Africa nor the Nigerian Embassy in the country was said to be aware of the planned purchase.
The salacious tale of the taking of the huge sum in 100 dollar bills inside three suitcases into South Africa was also compounded by the claim that the plane used for the illegal activity belongs to the president of the Christian Association in Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, albeit under lease to a business enterprise which had been using it for rental services.
The interception of this huge sum of money in South Africa and the involvement of the Nigerian government in the salubrious affair is a big embarrassment to the country. Although the government has been trying to downplay the import of the incident, claiming that it is the global practice for countries to carry such huge sums of money around in cash for the purchase of firearms, it is very difficult for any discerning person to accept such hogwash. No responsible country would allow anyone to bring such huge sums of money in cash, because cash transactions such as this are the lifeblood of money laundering activities and they could be used to destabilise the economies and security of nations.
The entire transaction and the Nigerian government’s feeble efforts to explain it can only further paint Nigeria black in the international community, especially in South Africa, where our country already suffers a serious credibility deficit on account of the unsalutory activities of some of our compatriots that are resident in the country.
This incident has also come at a time when South Africa lost 84 of its citizens in the recent collapse of a guest house operated by the Synagogue Church of All Nations for its foreign worshippers in Lagos, Nigeria.
Already, the South African media has been scathing in its reportage of the collapsed building, with one of its newspapers flashing the headline, Blood on their hands, in reaction to reports that the members of the church hindered rescue efforts to bring out victims buried under the collapsed structure, thereby increasing the number of casualties. How low, indeed, can the relations between two countries get!
Under the present circumstance, it has become necessary for the government to come out with the true details of this controversial transaction. The government will, indeed, have a hard time explaining why it had to carry such huge sum to South Africa in cash when Nigeria’s own Money Laundering Act places a $10,000 ceiling on cash movements into the country.
Even the United Nations General Assembly had last year adopted an Arms Trade Treaty to regulate international trade in firearms, with the objective of ensuring transparency in arms purchases, so that that the deadly goods are not bought like ordinary consumable items in open markets. The objective of the treaty is to make sure that nations would not operate like insurgent groups that make surreptitious purchases in arms black markets, thereby endangering the world. Let the UN work hard to bring the treaty into full effect.
With Nigeria’s consistently poor ranking on the global corruption index, this scandal on  dollar importation into South Africa should have been avoided.  The attempt to explain the failure of the men to declare the sum as a procedural error or an oversight shows Nigeria’s poor attitude to serious issues. What happened is, at best, no simple procedural error or oversight as unnamed government officials are trying to make us to believe. It smacks of poor thinking and a deliberate suscription to illegality on the part of all those involved in the transaction.
In the final analysis, while it is yet possible that the South African authorities may return the seized money to Nigeria on account of the personal relationships between our two presidents and the need to maintain good neighbourliness, it is necessary that the Nigerian government convinces Nigerians on its actual intentions for the money. The people need to be convinced that the money was not actually being stolen, to be stashed in foreign accounts.
It is also necessary for the Nigerian authorities to learn the necessary lessons from the incident. Even if the money was taken to South Africa to buy arms, we must learn to do things the right way. It is not proper to stash cash in suitcases and start hauling them across international borders only to be intercepted by the authorities of other countries and invite odium to the country.
Nigeria is not a banana republic, and our leaders must abide by the globally accepted way of moving funds through fund transfers, especially at this time that the country has been making a hue and a cry of its cashless policy.

The $9.3m embarrassment in South Africa