Cover, Featured
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and members of his three-man committee has two weeks to unravel who owns the controversial N13 billion seized in Ikoyi flat by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and perhaps, solve the problem of security agencies trying to outwit each other in order to please the president
| By Olu Ojewale | May 1, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT |
WHO owns the N13 billion recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, from a flat in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Wednesday, April 12? That is one riddle the three-man committee set up by President Muhammadu Buhari is going to unravel and make known to Nigerians. On Wednesday, April 19, Buhari asked Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to head a three-man panel with Abubakar Malami, attorney-general and Babagana Monguno, national security adviser, as the remaining two members. Although the term of reference for the committee was not made public, it is apparent that the government would like to disabuse the mind of the public and make a categorical pronouncement on the money which has been a contentious issue right from the time it was recovered from a residential apartment at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos.
The investigative panel, which has two weeks to do its work, is expected to unravel the “circumstances in which the NIA came into possession of the funds, how and by whose or which authority the funds were made available to the NIA, and to establish whether or not there has been a breach of the law or security procedure in obtaining custody and use of the funds,” a statement by Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president, said.
Not surprisingly, President Buhari on Wednesday, April 19, ordered the suspension of Ayodele Oke, director general of the NIA, to pave the way for unfettered access to all the necessary information needed by the committee to do its work thoroughly. The suspension of Oke was announced alongside that of the Babachir Lawal, secretary to the federal government, who is being investigated for a different matter entirely.
In carrying out its finding, the investigative committee is expected to question a number of public officials who may have had a remote connection with the cash, especially given the statement made by Oke, claiming that the money belong to the NIA.
Following a tip-off, operatives of the EFCC, had on April 12, raided Osborne Towers where they claimed to have found $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000 hidden inside an apartment there. Based on the Central Bank of Nigeria conversion rate, the funds were valued at more than N13 billion.
The find caused conflicting claims of ownership of the money because the EFCC said it could not link it to anyone.
Hence, the anti-graft agency approached the federal high court to secure a forfeiture order a day after the money was recovered. Muslim Hassan, a judge at the Lagos division of the FHC, granted the EFCC’s prayer and gave any potential claimant until May 5, to come forward otherwise the entire N13 billion would be permanently forfeited to the federal government.
In an interview with Premium Times on April 14, Oke said that the NIA had concealed the money in the apartment for undisclosed covert operations abroad. Pressed for information on the kind of operations the money was meant for, Oke had retorted: “You don’t expect me to tell you that.”
Sources claimed that former President Goodluck Jonathan had approved the operation for which the NIA allegedly obtained the money during the tenure of Olaniyi Oladeji, Oke’s predecessor in office, when the former NIA boss alerted him of the need for the covert operations.
It is believed that the money in question was released by the CBN based on Oladeji’s recommendations. Hence, the recovered funds had the packaging and inscriptions of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company on them, indicating that they had come directly from the CBN. The dollar denominations were also itemised with serialised bar codes.
But the CBN has since cast doubts on its connection to the money. “I cannot say if the notes the NIA is claiming came from the CBN,” Isaac Okorafor, its spokesperson said in a newspaper interview.
Olajide retired from the NIA service in 2013 and it was then incumbent on Oke to forward the memo on the request for the money to the Jonathan administration for approval. The suspended DG of the NIA, sources said claimed to have informed the current NSA about the money.
What, perhaps, makes the case more intriguing is the fact that apartment 7B where the money was found actually belongs to Chobe Ventures Limited, a company owned by Folashade Oke, wife of the suspended DG of the NIA.
In any case, when Oke got wind of the raid, he was said to have approached Magu to order the EFCC operatives who broke into the apartment to back down while the operation was still underway, but the EFCC boss was said to have declined his pleas.
That means to suggest that there was, or still, no cooperation among the security agencies. Perhaps, as an analyst has suggested the EFCC probably wanted to take a pound of flesh from another security agency for the way the Department of Security Services, DSS, wrote a damaging report which said he was not competent to lead the anti-corruption war because he had some questionable acquisition bothering on corrupt enrichment. The DSS recommendation hitherto has been the major obstacle preventing Magu’s appointment from being confirmed by the Senate.
If, indeed, it is true that Oke had approached Magu to soft pedal on the EFCC’s raid on the Osborne apartment and he refused, it could also mean that the security agencies are not sharing information among themselves and that each of those appointed to lead the agencies are there to impress the president about their competence.
That was the charge against Magu. Since the Senate has rejected him twice, critics of anti-graft agency boss believe that he has been working so hard to tilt public sympathy in his favour while also showing to the president that he is the man for the job. The Senate rejected Magu in December 2016 and on Wednesday, March 15, this year based on a letter saying he was not competent to lead the agency.
It was also clear from the onset that there was going to be a unhealthy rivalry among the security services as soon as Buhari entered the Presidential Villa in June 2015. Perhaps, feeling uncomfortable with the DSS apparatus at the Villa, Abubakar Lawal, a colonel and aide de camp to the president, ordered the replacement of DSS officials with the military.
In a memo, Lawal said that: “Only soldiers will serve as bodyguards to Mr President, while the SSS personnel will no longer have access to president’s residence and office and even the Council Chambers.”
The change sparked a row between Lawal and Abdulraman Mani, chief security officer, CSO, to the president. But eventually, in February 2017, Mani was able to persuade the Presidency that having the military guarding the president is not the norm all over the world.
Thus, Mani caused a memo to be sent to the national security adviser, the chief of defence staff and the director-general of the DSS, citing relevant sections of the Constitution that it is the duty of the DSS to protect the president.
In his memo, Mani argued: “The extant practice, the world over, is that VIP protection, which is a specialised field, is usually handled by the Secret Service, under whatever nomenclature. They usually constitute the inner core security ring around every principal. The police and the military by training and mandate are often required to provide secondary and tertiary security cordons around venues and routes.”
Hence, the security of the Presidential villa was returned to the DSS on February 10, 2017.
Given such a scenario, it is possible that security services may try to outdo themselves in trying to please the president but very much to the detriment of the country. Sadiq Shehu, a former NIA agent and security expert, gave this hint in an interview, but cautioned that no one should make an conclusion yet because the N13 billion is still under investigation.
“During my time in NIA, I never heard that a private apartment was being used to keep money. So, I doubt if actually the money belongs to the agency. If it does, officials should be able to tell Nigerians how it got there and for what purpose and whether the money should not have been kept with the CBN. But it is too early in the day; investigation is still going and we should await the outcome of the ongoing investigation,” Shehu said.
That notwithstanding, the Osborne N13 billion investigative panel led by Osinbajo will have to be convincing in its report based on the hues and cries caused by the money. In the heat of controversy over the ownership of the fund, on April 15, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, said the money belonged to his state, which he alleged was plundered by Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, his predecessor in office.
“We have facts to prove that the said money belongs to the Rivers State government,” Wike said. “The Federal Government must return our money.”
But Amaechi, now minister of Transport, strongly denied the allegations and threatened to sue those who publicly accused him of being the owner of the money.
The uncertainties notwithstanding, President Buhari directed that the money be returned to the CBN and ordered a full-scale investigation of the matter.
In any case, the matter has raised moral justification of keeping money in a private apartment instead of blaming the EFCC for exposing a fellow security agency. Faulting the NIA’s claim to the money, Sule Lamido, a former governor of Jigawa State, said: “No reasonable person will believe that there is no safe for the NIA to keep its money except in a private residence in Lagos; those in position of authority should always have the courage to tell the truth because leadership is sacred.”
Similarly, Itsey Sagay, SAN, a professor of law and chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC, said that it was unthinkable for the director general of NIA to keep government money in a private residence. Sagay said: “How can you hold over $40 million of state money in a private apartment, without the knowledge of the head of state to whom you’re responsible?
“So they ’ve turned themselves into a government of their own. They didn’t inform the present administration that they got this money from the Jonathan administration and this is what it was meant for and this is what is left.
“Once they didn’t do that, then they were all on a criminal conduct which should lead to what has happened now. It’s very clear that they intended to convert it to their private use. That’s why I said everything is inevitable.”
Monday Ubani, second vice president, Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, said: “These are the qualities that endeared some of us to Buhari: being decisive, being firm, very bold and strong, and being unpredictable. These are attributes of a good leader. It’s a virtue, not a vice.
“If there are people that are around you as a President, and tongues are wagging as to some level of malfeasance or indiscretion on their part, what a good leader will do is to take those people off their posts for a short time in order to investigate those allegations. President Buhari came with a strong reputation for integrity and with the people’s confidence. So, anything that has any iota of staining his reputation should be avoided at all times. He acted a bit late, but it’s better late than never.
“To me, it’s kudos to the president. Let those guys clear their names. If they’re found clean they can come back, if not, they should go from there,” Ubani said.
Be that as it may the outcome of the probe is not just going to be about identifying who owns the money but it will also have a far reaching effect on the Buhari administration especially with elections of 2019 in view.
Tags:
