When officials act like gangsters.

Nigeria

Are Nigerian officials trying to make our country a laughingstock? asked the Lagos This Day in an editorial. Last week, the defense envoy to India was caught trying to return to Nigeria with $2.27 million stuffed in his suitcase. Capt. G.A. Ojedokun claimed he was just carrying clothes and personal items, but when the Indian airport scanner picked up images of “wads of dollars,” Indian authorities were forced to search the bag and arrest the captain. The Nigerian Navy is defending its man. It says the funds were “legitimately provided to facilitate the procurement of certain items.” That may be. But hasn’t the navy heard of wire transfers? Surely there can be no good reason for “physically carrying such huge sums of money about.” Given the epidemic of money laundering among Nigerian officials, international envoys should be stricter than strict in following protocol. Instead, they seem to tumble in an “avalanche of arbitrariness.” Such behavior “sets us many steps backward in the pursuit of an improved international image.”

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