The mind-boggling revelation by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, of a massive fraud of about $10 million in the nation’s foreign ministries is disturbing. The minister, who spoke at a two-day seminar organized by the ministry on ‘Restoring the Standards of the Foreign Ministry’ in Abuja, said that he had discovered[b] in all the nation’s missions abroad that career diplomats claimed tuition fees for non-existing children.
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He pointed out that the operations in the nation’s Foreign Service had not been immune to corruption. The scam, which was made possible by the ministry’s method of electing to pay school fees directly to officers serving abroad instead of paying such to their children’s schools, involved at least five officers per mission with claims ranging from $25,000 to $30,000 each, yearly, as school fees for their wards. In one of the affected missions, one officer allegedly collected about $25,000. This was done in breach of standard diplomatic practice. The nation, with 102 missions abroad would have lost enormously due to the entrenched sleaze.

It is scandalous and outrageous that at a period the government is finding it difficult to finance education and satisfy other needs, some unscrupulous Nigerians in our foreign missions are busy siphoning scarce funds through the scholarship fraud.

It is, indeed, a pity that transparency and accountability, essentials of an efficient public service, are loose in our foreign service hence the hefty scam and the rot in the system. It appears that those who operate our foreign service operate different laws from those we have in Nigeria.

Good enough, this is coming at a time the anti-graft agency is tightening its noose on corrupt government officials. Let this case be one of those to be used in furtherance of the fight against corruption in our polity. We do not want any cover up. Let those involved be used as examples to others on the undesirability of fraud.
As a result of the malfeasance, the anti-corruption unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been mandated to investigate the alleged fraud. The investigation will focus mainly on allegations that[b] certain officers made false claims on their children’s school fees and sundry allowances.[/b] It will be good for them to go beyond this so as to unearth all the unwholesome practices in these missions. And those found to have compromised their positions should be prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other anti-graft agencies, where necessary.

Though, the revelation is coming a little late, we commend the minister for letting the cat out of the bag so that Nigerians can be abreast of the activities in our foreign missions. We believe that there might be other instances of fraudulent practices yet uncovered, especially on estacode claims.

We also suggest that the Inspectorate Unit of these missions be given more powers to fight the incipient corruption. The need for transparency and accountability should be emphasized in our missions, taking into due consideration the effect of the global financial crisis on the nation’s economy. There is also the need for periodic audit of the finances of our missions abroad.

To forestall future occurrence, let the foreign missions revert to the system of paying the school fees of wards abroad directly to the schools. Doing so would plug the loopholes created by paying such fees to the parents of the affected students.