The NAB Diaries

(courtesy Dr. Awab Alvi)

Pakistanis
I would like to share with the first two parts of this four part series titled 'The NAB Diaries' penned by Amer Niazi who has been a victim of the Nationally Accountability Bureau.  The first two parts can be found on Teeth Maestro's Blog @

1. PART ONE - http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/12/14/the-nab-diaries/
2. PART TWO - http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/12/23/nab-diaries-part-two-2/

Amer Niazi introduces himself and his narrations as

My name is Amer Nazir. I live in exile in London. It is a forced exile. I left Pakistan as soon as NAB took my name off the Exit Control List after a period of three years. If I had not left, probably I would have also disappeared forever like my best friend Ahmed Shujaudin – a leading architect.

I intend to write about my journey from a modest middle-class background to one of the top IT entrepreneurs of Pakistan before I fell to the extent that I became homeless. Once a familiar face in the so-called corporate social circles in Karachi it came to a point where no one was willing to take my phone call – after all, I was a NAB accused. I was never to be convicted but it did not matter. The logic was straight forward. If Shuja had been kidnapped then surely Shuja must have done something terrible to cause it or else at least deserve it…

The scope of these four narrations hopefully to be published during the next four weeks is to narrate a very brief account of my business journey, my labour of love, after a briefest possible introduction of myself, the major space will be given to my NAB experience, the actual inside account, and the behaviour and the attitude of our kings of the castle.

The hope is that some of you may see a part reflection of your own lives in this account and it may perhaps help you in some way. Another hope is that once it reaches the Free World and once fully investigated the world will realize that the common Pakistanis have never had the chance and that they deserve an honest break. There is also this hope to try and shame the shameless. And last but not least, and though it is a long shot, perhaps even Musharraf may realise the extent of damage he has done. He may finally understand, that although it is true for every institution, but especially when it comes to matters of justice, a self-designed system, a crude accountability set-up which is from day one formed on principles that are outside universally accepted rule of law – is soon bound to become abusive and corrupt itself…

For the non-Pakistanis, NAB is the acronym for The National Accountability Bureau. The flag ship of Musharraf. The main reason he gave for assuming power. He said that the nation had become too corrupt. NAB is composed of serving and retired army officers with unlimited powers. They are answerable to none . Present in every major city, each NAB office has a jail within its compound where prisoners are kept without any possibilities of bail. Some of them picked up from the streets, most from their beds at dawn. Several have died during interrogations…

And lastly, my narration will detail how a proud Pakistani was forced to claim asylum in his wife's homeland. Who although married to a British national for twenty years had never applied for the British nationality and had instead sponsored his wife for the Pakistani nationality instead…

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