NIIA Records Expose 9-Year Audit Gap, ₦91.4m Financial Irregularities

Secrets Reporters

Nine years without audited accounts. That is the stark opening chapter of a confidential internal review of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, a document obtained exclusively by SecretsReporters. From 2012 through 2020 the institute charged with shaping Nigeria’s foreign-policy thinking simply did not produce the financial statements required by regulation.

When the review was conducted in June 2021 the gap remained. Management attributed the omission to the “unstable nature” of the Governing Council. The practical effect was a near-decade in which parliamentary and executive oversight of an important think-tank proceeded in the dark.

The same period produced a catalogue of cash-handling practices that left tens of millions of naira either unaccounted for or improperly paid. Fourteen vouchers between 2018 and 2020, amounting to ₦11,538,354.96, were processed through the government’s electronic platform but directed to an officer other than the named beneficiary. The explanation offered. that the payments concerned individuals outside the platform or non-personal advances, did not address the core breach of payment rules designed to prevent diversion.

Stamp duty followed a similar pattern. Contracts valued at ₦101,538,043.32 were settled without the statutory one-per-cent deduction, costing the treasury ₦1,015,380.43. Officials later claimed the electronic platform lacked a dedicated line item for the levy and that the correct account details only became available in January 2022. By then the revenue had already left government coffers.

More substantial still were the cash advances. Thirty-one non-personal advances issued between January 2018 and December 2020 totalled ₦34,943,763.10 and remained unretired at the time of the review. Three officers received fresh advances while earlier ones were still outstanding.

A large portion of the money, ₦34,454,313.10, exceeded the threshold that should have triggered formal procurement, including single advances of up to ₦6,250,000 for Governing Council meetings. The structure of the payments also meant an estimated ₦3,789,974.44 in VAT, withholding tax and stamp duty never reached the relevant authorities. Management insisted all the advances had since been settled; the review found no documentary closure.

Supporting paperwork was frequently missing. Nineteen paid vouchers covering ₦42,730,008.96 lacked the documentation needed to verify that the expenditure had been approved or even incurred. Eight further payments in 2019, worth ₦4,160,297.41 and covering contract-staff allowances plus an electricity bill, were released before the vouchers themselves had been raised, completely bypassing pre-payment audit. In both sets of cases no management response was recorded.

Even sitting allowances were paid in defiance of clear rules. Six separate disbursements between 2018 and 2020 gave full-time salaried staff a total of ₦2,752,400 for attending internal procurement meetings, payments expressly prohibited for officers already drawing salaries.

The cumulative picture that emerges from the exclusive dossier is of an institute whose financial controls were, for years, largely ornamental. Nearly ₦91.4 million in questioned payments sits alongside a nine-year vacuum in audited accounts.

For an organisation whose mandate is to advise the Nigerian state on international affairs, the inability to keep its own house in order is more than an administrative footnote. It is a sustained failure of the most basic public accountability.