IMPORTANT NOTICE

I lead a double life such that I use my client’s assets to take care of myself. I also try to cook the books as much as possible so my employers don’t find out what I’m up to. However, a full scale internal audit of our books is in the offing and the new Internal Auditor might turn out to be my next neighbour in one of my luxury hideouts.

I don’t have many options right now, not since the “near-miss” involving my employers and the new internal auditor. I could move out of the luxury apartment with immediate effect or find other means to fend off the looming audit. I might decide to travel out of the country, but my own investment plans would be hampered if I had to go underground. My plan is to gain the confidence of high net worth individuals who can invest in my own company which should take off soon. Once I get the capital, I will return the money I have been taking from my present employer.  The new auditor seems to be the only obstacle on my way. The rot in our financial system was large scale and the management was serious about doing something before the Central Bank swooped in on us. Already, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had detained some other bank executives and was about charging them to court. It would only be a matter of time before they got to us, even though our firm is not a major player in the financial sector. It would take just the complaint of one investor to turn the searchlight on us. The management thought it needed to be proactive in order to stay afloat. Meanwhile, I will move out of my luxury apartment in Victoria Island and head for the mini-flat in Mushin. I would also stick to driving my battered Toyota and stop attending any high profile event forthwith. I have to keep a low profile until this wind of investigations passes.

My supervisor is also privy to what I do. He was the one who actually introduced me to the job. He is a very reckless man and had been fired from his bank job before he took up this one.  I take orders from him and he taught me how to manipulate figures and balance the books. We are into the same stuffs, but he doesn’t have to play the hide and seek games like I do. These days, he looks very sick just like some of the other senior executives. It seems I’m not alone in all of there is fear and tension in almost every department of the company. My supervisor hinted to me over a few drinks that they were trying to do something about the new auditor. He said it was possible to make him give everyone some of us a safe landing. The inspection of luxury apartments in highbrow Ikoyi, Lekki and Victoria Island for the new auditor, he said, was a step in that direction. They also intend to distract him with other offers to make him plays ball failing which they might be pushed to other measures to arm-twist him. My supervisor doesn’t know the scale of my own involvement in the mismanagement of client assets, and I didn’t want to mention that I was in my own luxury flat when our executives came on inspection. He is obviously taken by my double standards and he thinks I’m not as sophisticated. This might be my saving grace now that I know that the other executives have not been so prudent in covering their steps.

The audit began in my department and my supervisor would have been the first victim except that he escaped. As he would not be taken so cheaply, he left the country a few days ago. His phone lines went dead and he had cleared out his apartment. Investigation revealed he had mismanaged millions of dollar assets under his portfolio. I guess that may also include the assets under my watch that I had converted to my personal. The supervisor was responsible for everything that happened in the department. He must have seen it coming, because he did left town on the day before he was scheduled to see the internal auditor. He didn’t leave any property behind and the authorities are not sure of what to do. Alerting the EFCC, I thought would be presumptuous on the part of the management. It would sound like an admission of guilt in a situation where everyone seems to have been tainted. There was already a panic among investors who were beginning to call out their assets from the company. With my supervisor gone, I thought that I would be safe from any investigations. I must have got it wrong on that point because a few days later, I was escorted out of my office by operatives of the EFCC.  They said they had damning evidence against me...