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How Okereke-Onyiuke, Bank Chiefs Bought Transcorp Shares For Obasanjo-The NATION interview

October 14, 2006

You guys are soul mates! How are you perceived?
Nasir el-Rufai:
It was at a meeting of the Northern elders, in Kano to try to zero in on a Northern presidential candidate. After the meeting, and this was a security report because the SSS recorded them, they said you know in the Northern states now, the President has chosen to ignore the real established people. He is now relying on some rascals like Ribadu and el-Rufai. They are very upset. In many ways, you know Nuhu and I share many things in common really.

You guys are soul mates! How are you perceived?

Nasir el-Rufai:

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It was at a meeting of the Northern elders, in Kano to try to zero in on a Northern presidential candidate. After the meeting, and this was a security report because the SSS recorded them, they said you know in the Northern states now, the President has chosen to ignore the real established people. He is now relying on some rascals like Ribadu and el-Rufai. They are very upset. In many ways, you know Nuhu and I share many things in common really.

 

Like what and what?

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Nasir el-Rufai:

Well,

Nuhu Ribadu

: (Cuts in) I am copying him.

Nasir el-Rufai:

I think I can say this for both of us. I think both of us believe that the cause of the Nigerian problem is not grounded in ethnicity, in religion, in gender, anything like that. The Nigerian problem is purely and simply the problem of ignoring the rule of law. And when you have a society of anything goes, then you can?t make any progress. It is only in this country that we?ve been complaining about corruption in four decades but has never convicted any one for corruption until Nuhu came along. We have never convicted anyone apart from the brief period of Buhari where people were sentenced to 200 years and so on by military tribunals. But not in a normal legal system. No Nigerian has ever been prosecuted and successfully convicted on bribery and corruption until EFCC came in.

What other things do you guys have in common?

Nasir el-Rufai:

We also have a passion for Nigeria . We believe there are two kinds of Nigerians. We have the bad ones and we have the good ones, pure and simple and these good Nigerians are found all over the place; East, West, Niger Delta and Niger unDelta. Wherever you look, you will find only two kinds of Nigerians, the good ones and bad ones. And the key is to try to find the good ones and work with them, and with the bad ones, fight them to the end. And we also believe that the biggest problem of Nigeria is corruption. If you want to begin to fix Nigeria , you have to fight corruption to a stand still, impose the rule of law and have an incentive structure where good people are rewarded and bad people are punished. And if we do that for 10 years, this country will take off. This country has greater potentials than the United States of America ever had, so why are we like this? And you see around our actions and our statements, and everything that we do, everywhere and in Abuja is based on the rule. We have rule, this rule applies to everybody, we don?t care whether you are big or small, we don?t care whether you are rich or poor. Because you are poor doesn?t mean you should break the law. When we banned okada, they said poor people used it but that is not the point, the point is that there is a Road Traffic Act of 1961 that requires you, if you are driving a motorcycle to have a class A driving license. Nobody carries it around anymore. That law is still in our statute books. There is a Road Traffic Act that requires your motorcycle to have a general motor receipt, to have particulars as they call it, nobody gets that anymore, people even drive motorcycle without number plates. That is breaking the law. I didn?t make the law, but in FCT, it is my job to enforce the law. And there is nothing in out statute books that recognizes commercial motorcycles. Taxis must have a roof, but when you come to enforce the law, people will find all kinds of things to say; they will say it is selective.

Yes, that is the thing they accused you of, they said it is selective

.

Nasir el-Rufai:

Yes, but everything about life is selective. God would have created us all the same day if He didn?t want it to be selective. Everybody is born on a different day, that is selective. In your family, you are all not born on the same day, that is selective. Some are old, some are young. Look at me, I am 5 feet 5, it is selective. There are some people that are seven feet. I would want to play basket ball I can?t.

But you can do something a tall man cannot do.

Nasir el-Rufai:

Yes, it is selective too.

A tall man can?t be a goal keeper because he can?t catch the ball.

Nasir el-Rufai:

It is selective, but the point now is that everything about life is selective, You know what, let us take one case applicable to me and one case applicable to Nuhu. We came here and inherited hundreds of illegal structures. If I don?t want to be selective, I should arrange to demolish them all on the same day but is that tactical? The thing is that you have to pick some and deal with them. What people should do is to wait, when you are done, when you have finished the job, and they say that you left one out that ought to go down, then you are being selective. In the case of Nuhu, there are many criminals in Nigeria , there are many money launderers, he cannot arrest them all on the same day. He has to start with some, and in this life, to succeed in anything, you have to sequent. You pick your battles. Sometimes, you pick difficult ones, sometimes you pick easy ones. Everything about life is a matter of strategy. It is selective but the point is this, when selecting the person, the question you ask is, has he done it, is he liable? If he is liable, people should just shut up because even God is selective. 

Sometimes when they say something is selective, it is like saying that somebody loves Abel more than Cain.

Nuhu Ribadu:

In my own case, every step of the work I have taken, someone will have to accuse you of something.

Nasir el-Rufai:

(cuts in) Absolutely.

Nuhu Ribadu

: First, when we were fighting 419, they said it was because I am a Northerner and because most of the 419ners are from one small part of Nigeria . That was what I was accused of and they wrote a lot of things. Later on when I was attacking those in banking doing terrible things they said?

Nasir el-Rufai:

Your first victim was a Northerner.

Nuhu Ribadu:

No, they said because I am Fulani and he is Kanuri and we are out to wipe out the Kanuris.

Who was that?

Nasir el-Rufai & Nuhu Ribadu:

Bulama of the Bank of the North.

Nuhu Ribadu:

So, you know as I moved on, the biggest allegation against me and Nasir was that we are the number one enemy of the North; they said we are a sell-out. Yes, you don?t know our image in the North. Unbelievable!

Nasir el-Rufai:

Among Northern elite.

Nuhu Ribadu:

That is it. Even in the South. Actually you are talking about the entire Nigeria . But that is the elite. So at one point, they said we were serving the interest of Obasanjo. Later on, they said we wanted Obasanjo because Obasanjo was going for third term. And do you know one thing they are talking about now, that I am working for you (el-Rufai) to be President of Nigeria . That is what they are saying.

Yes, I wanted to ask that question. Do you (el-Rufai) have the ambition to be the President of Nigeria ?

Nasir el-Rufai:

No.

You don?t ever want to be President of Nigeria

Nasir el-Rufai:

I don?t have it as an ambition.

What if they call you to be president?

Nasir el-Rufai:

It depends on who calls me.

What do you mean by that?

Nuhu Ribadu:

The issue is that they are shifting the goal post everyday. Very soon if they see me with you, they will say I am working for Sam to be president. So, whatever thing I do, somebody has to give it an interpretation and the very convenient one is to say that I am doing that because of this or because of that interest. I was reading Orji Kalu, he said that Obasanjo was after his mum. For God?s sake, he (Obasanjo) doesn?t even know this case that we are handling, he doesn?t even know that we have gone after anybody like that. He said, how can they say that they don?t know where his mum is because she talks to the villa everyday. And that even Obasanjo bought his mother a vehicle and therefore, EFCC must know. Why should we declare her wanted. Simple. We went, she refused to see us. We got a court order, she disobeyed it. We went to the house, they started shooting and now we went partly to say you are wanted and they are saying Obasanjo is after her. How? You see this is it, and people like them are those who are compromising everything; they are the ones who are promoting this destruction and unfortunately, a lot of good people listen to them and some also may be making an impact on them..

I am coming to that. Now, the other question I want to ask has to do with the President. You are very close to the President, you have won battle against strong people even in the National Assembly. The idea is that you are one of the favourite sons of the President, and so...

Nasir el-Rufai: 

Yes I am.

You take it as an honour?

Nasir el-Rufai:

 

Oh yes, it is my badge of honour.

You tend to believe that the President is actually a man of integrity. What of the allegations that the Vice-President has thrown at him? He has not come out to defend himself. Instead, he comes through Remi Oyo. In the US , in a situation like that, the President will have to sit down and address the issues raised.

Nuhu Ribadu:

Even if it is rubbish? Even if you have forged it? 

Nasir el-Rufai:

Listen! Listen! The President is a man of integrity and I think this is the right time to make this important point that any fool can throw an allegation on the street. Okay? Any fool can produce a forged cheque and make a photocopy and say I gave this but it has to be proved. I was involved in the administrative panel of inquiry. I was a member, so, I was in a privileged position to review not only EFCC?s report but demand from EFCC to give us documents that formed the basis of their recommendations. All the cheques we are talking about, you see every cheque on Marine Float, I have seen it, every cheque on MOFAS Account, I have seen it, you understand? When you take any cheque and you tippex and you put somebody?s name and you give a photocopy to newspapers which are not in a position to verify and they publish it, it is news but that doesn?t mean that it is correct. Most of the information given by the VP side is false, it is forgery and I will just give one which has come out. Garba Shehu said that a car was bought for a lady friend of the President. Okay? And it was the President that said that car should be bought, a 607 from Brisco. Right? They checked and it was found that Otuuba Fasawe, on his own, offered to buy that car as a surprise to this lady on the eve of her coronation. She got a chieftaincy title and that happened. The reports are there. He knows her very well, he gave cash to the lady?s brother who went and bought the car and got a receipt from ASD Motors not Briscoe Motors.

But where did Fasawe get the money?

Nasir el-Rufai:

I am coming. He bought from ASD Motors and a receipt was issued. How much is that car? N9 million. But what came out was that, you know, the President asked me to issue a cheque to R.T. Briscoe to buy a car for this and that and then $110,000 was wired to this same woman?s account by Bodunde. Her account number was stated; they said that the woman has a house somewhere in Norton Hill. These are all false. The account number doesn?t exist, the woman doesn?t have such an account, she has never had a house in the UK , there is no such address as was given. These people are actually shameless.

Nuhu Ribadu

: It is just because you know somebody who is ? you manufacture this

If there is a genuine cheque and also fake cheque, why don?t we have all of them in the public eye so that we ?

Nuhu Ribadu:

No. But we are not in a court of law. You won?t expect us to like what they are issuing out, but we will have an avenue like, if for an example, we are going to the Senate probe hearing, these things will come out.

Nasir el-Rufai:

Those that say they gave a cheque to A or B, they should produce the cheque, they should produce it, not produce a photocopy that you tippex, produce it because on our side, we will produce ours.

That is what we are waiting for, let us see the other side.

Nasir el-Rufai:

We will, that is one. First, you know, because I know a little bit more than people, because before I sat down and signed my name to the report, I had to be convinced and we saw it. Secondly, we saw there is difference between what we saw in the case of VP directly linking him and his conduct to the abuse of public funds and with anything that you can say the President has done. What is the most grievous allegation against the President? That Otunba Fasawe bought a car for the President?s friend or Bodunde collected N17 million from Otunba Fasawe. Let us assume that they are all correct and let?s assume that Otunba Fasawe got that money from PTDF. That is direct payment to Otunba Fasawe and Bodunde. In the case of the VP, there are cases of direct payments to him, N250 million from that same Otunba Fasawe account to the account of Atiku Abubakar. These are direct payments to him.

But now, the case of Fasawe and Bodunde, these are very tight friends of the President, close friends of the President; is it a situation of the President using fronts?

Nasir el-Rufai:

And Atiku doesn?t use fronts, he takes it directly. Atiku?s PA took N400 million from the same account, the President?s PA took N17 million.

But it is not the matter of how much, it is a matter of basic ?

Nasir el-Rufai:

No! No! No! How much also matters because it shows a pattern of behaviour and conduct. It is a crime, even if it is N1, it is the same crime. But the same judge will tell you that you should attach more weight to the evidence, N400 million and N17 million are not the same.

But in terms of money and?

Nasir el-Rufai:

There are still no cheques direct to the President. Atiku collected money directly as agent of Nigeria .

But they have said there is more to come

.

Nasir el-Rufai:

Let them produce it. They have nothing. What we have seen is all they have. If they have, they would have produced it.

Nuhu Ribadu

: But how can you even relate the two? Obasanjo hasn?t had anything or any business with anybody who is caught in the US . He never did business with Mike Adenuga, he never did business with TIB, he never sat down with Fasawe and said, let us do this transaction. Never! All these things, how can you just drag him from nowhere simply because he is the President? Atiku Abubakar is the one who authorized, who supervised this thing, who gave instructions; he is the one who ultimately went round and did business with the Congressman in the US , he is the one who gave instructions for this thing, the money went into his own account directly, himself or his own assistant. How do you now suddenly forget all these and you are dragging Obasanjo into it? Simply because you want protection, simply because you want to confuse the public, simply because you raise an ?

Nasir el-Rufai:

You see when you are caught with your hands in the jar, smearing others does not absolve. You see, the VP has never come out to deny anything.

Yes, what he is saying is that may be my hand is dirty, I am not dirty alone.

Nasir el-Rufai:

Is that a defence?

No, that is not a defence but the point again is that he is saying that?

Nasir el-Rufai:

You see, let me tell you what Nigerians should worry about? Let us assume Obasanjo and Atiku are equally culpable, who should we be worried about? The President? This one has only six months to go, do you want a repeat?

In the US, they will say you should go now, that is ?

Nasir el-Rufai:

That is fine if you have a case. But this one, it is eight and half years of more of the same. So, who should Nigerians worry about?

Worry about both.

Nasir el-Rufai:

No, now you are not being honest.

Now, we should worry about both of them, what we should worry about is that both of them should never spend a day more than necessary.

Nuhu Ribadu

: Very good, but Sam, the issue you are talking about is evil, there is no way for you to even link Obasanjo with the embezzlement of PTDF fund. He did not approve, he did not transact business with any of the people who are involved in this investigation. He did not know anything, absolutely nothing; he is just like Sam Omatseye?

Nasir el-Rufai:

Now if Otunba Fasawe gives you N10 million from that account, should you be guilty?. You are not in a position to influence PTDF giving money to TIB to MOFAS. You are not, you just got money.

But that is the question people are asking. People are saying he is the President, he has over-arcing powers and he doesn?t have to give instructions in writing. He just has to tell and yet nothing is on record.

Nasir el-Rufai:

That is not true.

Nuhu Ribadu:

 

How would you know?

Nasir el-Rufai:

That is not true. Everything you do with the President is based on a memorandum, a prayer and approval and I can produce many of such memos because that is how I deal with him.

What of the N50 million he refunded?

Nasir el-Rufai:

That one, Nuhu has more information about it but I know a little bit; I will tell you what I know. What happened was that in the course of investigating Plateau, they came across this diversion of funds, ecological funds and there were two cheques one was to PDP SouthWest and another one was to PDP National Headquarters. That was what the record showed on Plateau. When the cheques were traced, it was found that N100m, went to Marine Float which is the account controlled by the VP and Nuhu went to the President and said we found this money, Plateau State money, we have to recover it and put it back in escrow account for Plateau State. He went to the VP and said VP, this money didn?t go to PDP South West, it didn?t go to PDP National, it went into your account. So, refund it. It was about a year ago or so and, by that time, all this Jefferson thing had not come out. So, VP said to Nuhu: but it is not my personal account, we use it for political activities. Nuhu said political activities? Well, you just have to pay. So, VP went to the President and said you know, this money was used for our campaign. And the President told him, VP, how can you take money from a state government for our campaign? That he prohibited everyone from taking money from three sources: from any State Governments, Federal Government or its agencies; from shady characters; and from companies or individuals that will compromise the government. He said I gave you these conditions because you are doing the fund raising. VP said yes, you did but we still got this and we needed the money. He said, can you show me from the statement of account what you did with the money, because you didn?t tell me when you took it and I don?t know what you did with it. After several such discussions, the President decided okay, I am not convinced, there is nothing to show that it was actually used but no problem, let you and I take responsibility and refund the money to EFCC to put it in the Plateau State Escrow account. You pay N50m, I will pay N50m, because the VP, around that time was broke, he said he didn?t have money. This is what happened because I knew then. This was about a year ago and that was how N50 million was paid by each of them to EFCC. EFCC is still holding the money.

It is very interesting but he said that they refunded the money because the Vice President said he was broke, it didn?t really make sense that you have to refund the money because you said?

Nasir el-Rufai:

The VP said he was broke but the President felt, as leaders, they should take responsibility for it anyway. He wasn?t personally convinced of the story - because the account, if you see my records, I wish I have the print out because I have it - if you see people that got payment from that Marine Float Account, you will know it is VP?s account because the Obasanjo/Atiku Campaign organization had its own account and the money didn?t move from the Marine Float account to that account.

If it is the VP?s account, how come the President was involved?

Nasir el-Rufai:

He was not.

But he had to refund money!

Nasir el-Rufai:

No, he took responsibility based on what the VP told him. But you see Obasanjo/Atiku Campaign Organization had its own account. So, if that money was used for the campaign, why was it not moved from the Marine Float account to that account? It did not but just to cut short the argument, the President felt, okay, you say it is our campaign, I am President, you are Vice-President, let?s take responsibility. You see here, somebody down below in FCT goes and does something in the name of El-Rufai, I don?t deny him. I will not say I didn?t know, I will take responsibility, even though after I have taken responsibility and apologized for the mistake, I will set up an internal process to deal with him. But I will not go and start saying you did this without my knowledge. You take responsibility as a leader and that is what the President did. And even at that time, I had objection to it. I told the President, don?t do it.

Don?t do what?

Nasir el-Rufai:

Don?t refund the money. If you gave him conditions, people and sources from whom he should not take money and he did it, he should be on his own. But the President said no, let us just pay the money so that EFCC?s investigation can move on. This was what happened. You see unfortunately I am in a very difficult position because I worked with the VP for three-and-a-half years. I know him and I am very close to him or I think I used to but you know the level to which VP?s people have gone to tell lies, to twist stories, is just amazing. It is just too disappointing to me and I mean it.

You guys were in school together!

Nuhu Ribadu:

We went to the same university. But I was in Kongo campus while he was in Samaru Campus.

Nasir el-Rufai

: I was on his campus during my MBA. Otherwise my first degree in Quantity Survey was in Samaru.

That is why you have a good sense of demolition.

Nasir el-Rufai:

No, no, let me tell you, the first time I heard of Nuhu, it is a very interesting story. You know, I was doing my Masters when I was told the story of this law student who slapped an armed robber. Nuhu and a couple of his friends went out in a car and they were attacked by armed robbers. They stopped them and Nuhu was driving, they said come out, come out. So they came out of the car. They were commanded: give me the key of the car. Nuhu said the key is in the car. They said, give me the key. The next thing, he slapped Nuhu. And he had a gun. Then Nuhu slapped him back.

When was that and where?

Nasir el-Rufai:

Around 1983/84 in Zaria , they told me. So Nuhu has always had this unusual level of courage.

What of Transcorp?

Nasir el-Rufai:

This is how we started the billionaires? club and the whole idea is to have a mega corporation in which many Nigerian business men will be shareholders so that if the company gets business say in Liberia or Caribbean, let?s say they need sugar, they will come to Nigeria and get someone like Dangote who is already in the sugar business to provide the technical assistance to do it. This is the idea and the company was supposed to be active outside Nigeria . This was the whole idea and meetings were started and so on but Charles Soludo moved to Central Bank, he was Economic Adviser. The steering committee was running it then. There were some multiplications and alterations to the original idea but this was the original idea.

The real issue that worries people is the Blind Trust.

Nuhu Ribadu:

I can explain to you what really happened. With this original idea, Obasanjo bought in Transcorp as an innovation. He was very enthusiastic, he was very happy about promoting something like that. More so since it will pool resources of the big players in industry together to be able to generate capital. He was also particularly concerned about something that can promote Nigeria .

Nasir el-Rufai:

So that Nigerians can organize themselves in the same way that other capitalists have.

Nuhu Ribadu:

And if they pool resources together themselves, they will be able to put enough in whatever they do. So, he was very happy and it was a public thing. They had series of meetings, publicly. The day it was launched, he said, look, I want every Nigerian to be a shareholder in this company. In fact, I am even interested. I will come and buy. According to him, he was doing it to support, to up the credibility and acceptability of the project. While he was doing this, there were some smart guys around, very smart and I call names for you. People like Tony Elumelu, people like Jim Ovia, people like Festus Odimegwu, Ndidi Okereke ? These are the gangsters. These are the owners of Transcorp. They took over the opportunity. They were the ones who went and organized to say that they were going to give him loan in UBA.

To give whom loan?

Nuhu Ribadu:

Obasanjo in that thing called Blind Trust. N200 million or so was what they took from UBA. Not a penny from his pocket and they said that they gave it to the Blind Trust to buy shares for him. He told me he was expecting that when he leaves office, he will buy those shares.

So, Tony Elumelu of UBA, Jim Ovia of Zenith ?

Nuhu Ribadu:

Odimegwu and Okereke, people who have left, they were the ones who were promoting third term for him; they suddenly made him (Obasanjo) do something else. It is UBA money that was taken and they went and?

But he was aware of it.

Nuhu Ribadu:

Of course, yes!

But he didn?t stop them.

Nuhu Ribadu:

For your information, the fact is that he didn?t know it was something that was not acceptable.

Is that what he said

Nasir el-Rufai:

Is it government money? He didn?t break the law because you are allowed to buy shares as a government official, you are not allowed to be a director of any business except it is farming. The Constitution exempts agriculture. The issue really, the difficulty with Transcorp is that Transcorp has certain government shareholders and that same Transcorp is buying government assets. So, it is a conflict of interest issue but not a corruption issue.

But if there is conflict of interest then it is corruption issue?

Nasir el-Rufai:

It is a conflict of interest issue, it is not a corruption issue.

So, when there is conflict of interest, is there nothing corrupt about it?

Nasir el-Rufai:

No! no! No Public funds were used to buy the shares. None. No provision of the code of conduct was violated. None.

But it is his influence that got that money/shares. If he were not President, would he have gotten that money? Would they have come together and say we want to give you money?

Nasir el-Rufai:

No, no, no. There are many people who borrow money in the country and buy shares because the stock market is moving faster than interest rate is accumulating. There is nothing strange. Even you today, if you go to your bank, you want money to buy shares, you will be given. You see, there is a difference between mere case of corruption where you take public funds and convert it to your own. When Transcorp offered shares to Ngozi-Iweala, I told her, don?t accept. In fact, I sat her down, I said write a letter rejecting it, two copies and get them to acknowledge it. You know why I did that? Because Ngozi as Minister of Finance is the Vice-Chairman of the National Council on Privatization which will decide on the sale of government assets but the President is not. But, you see the way the Privatization Act is designed, these are not supposed to go to the President, they are supposed to stop at the level of Vice-President so that if somebody is not happy, he can petition the President to review because the President is not involved in the process of sales.

That is a good statement to me but the other point is, as a corporation as normal as the Transcorp is conceived to be, was he not supposed to know some of the basic things going on, as the President  and ask Vice-President to report to him?

Nasir el-Rufai:

Transcorp is a private company, encouraged by the government to be formed. But it is a private company, there is no government shares there. Normally, if government invests in a company, it has Ministry of Finance representation there but this is a private company. You see, you have to differentiate between the motives of the promoters of Transcorp and the legal reality. The legal reality of course is that it is a private company. They ingratiated themselves and took advantage but the truth is that no law has been broken. The issue is simply one of morality, it is not a legal issue.

Morality? but that is important.

 Nasir el-Rufai: I know but in the current state that we are in this country, we have more serious corruption issues to deal with. I didn?t take shares in Transcorp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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