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Farida Waziri: The New EFCC Chair Was Bukola Saraki's candidate

May 17, 2008
The appointment of Mrs. Farida Waziri as new chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission highlights the growing influence of Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State as the single most powerful individual within Umar Yar'adua’s tight circle of power brokers.

As Saharareporters disclosed earlier, the appointment of the 61-year old retired police officer is aimed at effectively paralyzing the EFCC. Saraki and several corrupt former governors who are subjects of intense investigation and prosecution by the EFCC are behind the plot.

Saraki and other supporters of Mrs. Waziri deployed former police honcho, M.D. Yusuf, to persuade Yar’adua to choose her. It was Yusuf who presented her resume to Yar’adua.

Like the ex-governors, Yusuf is also enmeshed in a corruption scandal. An embattled US corporate executive, Jeffrey Tesler who worked for a subsidiary of Halliburton, has told American investigators that he “made payments to Nigerian officials, including two $75,000 transfers to M.D. Yusuf, chairman of the company that awarded the original contract to the consortium and operated the natural gas complex.” Tessler has told investigators that “Yusuf had provided assistance to the consortium, including helping to arrange meetings between TSKJ officials and Abacha.”
Mr. Yusuf admitted receipt of the money, but said Tessler was an "old business friend" and that the money was a loan that had nothing to do with natural gas projects.
"I have occasionally taken money from [Tesler], but I always return it," he told a foreign newspaper by phone from Nigeria. "I have nothing to do with bribery."

Mr. Yusuf has been interrogated by the EFCC in connection with the bribery scandal. Given his legal jeopardy, it was not hard for the serving and former governors who wanted Waziri as head of EFCC to persuade him to push her candidacy.

Sources in the EFCC and within the Yar’adua regime told us that, after her retirement in 1999, Mrs. Waziri lobbied the EFCC hierarchy to stop the investigation of the Saraki dynasty. EFCC investigators were at the time digging into how the Sarakis looted the Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria, a now collapsed commercial bank in which Dr. Olusola Saraki, the governor’s father, owned controlling shares.

Mrs. Waziri, who was close to several EFCC officials, used her leverage to stop further investigations and the planned prosecution of the Saraki family, including the governor whose questionable wealth in Nigeria and the United Kingdom grew bigger just as the fortunes of the family bank, in which he was executive director, deteriorated.

In addition to her assistance to the Saraki family, Mrs. Waziri also lobbied the EFCC on behalf of former Governor George Akume of Benue, her home state. Like Saraki, Mr. Akume faced investigation for serious financial malfeasances. Mr. Akume is now a member of the Senate, even though a tribunal has invalidated his election.

Though a lawyer by training, Mrs. Waziri did not represent Saraki and Akume in an open court. Instead, she made sure their corruption cases never made it to court.

A cursory look at Bukola Saraki's wealth between 1999-2003, the most critical period in the life of the SGBN, shows that he acquired 15 luxurious cars, which included a Ferrari with a price tag of N240 million. He and his wife, Toyin, also purchased houses in London worth 10 million pounds. The Sarakis own the property at 70 Bourne Street, London SW1W 8JW, while Toyin Saraki had previously bought number 69 Bourne Street in 2000 for two million pounds. In 2002, the governor also bought Number 53 Ashley Gardens for 4 million pounds; he used a front company known as "53 Ashley Gardens Limited."

By the end of 2003, the SGBN had overdrawn its capital base at the Central Bank of Nigeria by N11 billion. The bank’s financial dealings were so bad that it was sent out of the clearinghouse by June 2003, a month after Bukola Saraki made frantic efforts to transfer Kwara State accounts to the bank to save it from total collapse. In a curious move, the Federal Government had also granted the SGBN N13 billion lifeline to enable it to pay off some of its high profile debts, including monies owed to Nigeria’s international soccer star, Austin Jay-Jay Okocha. As a sign of appeasement to the Saraki family, a Federal High Court judge in Abuja granted an injunction to force the Central bank of Nigeria into reviving the bank. Obasanjo presidency officials forced the CBN to abandon a planned appeal against the ruling.

Though Mrs. Waziri assisted Bukola Saraki to douse the fire of the EFCC, the young governor never forgave EFCC operatives for pushing his family to the edge. His nightmares began when rumors started swirling around his UK investments. The London Metropolitan Police reportedly began to pry into Bukola Saraki's investments in the UK.

A paranoid Bukola Saraki began working round the clock to ensure that Mrs. Waziri was made the EFCC chairperson. Several sources told Saharareporters that Mrs. Waziri’s two daughters, Jackie and Miriam, who live in the UK, received financial dole-outs from Governor Saraki. Jackie, the older daughter, operates a high end Afro-Caribbean hair salon called "Naomi David's" on the outskirts of London.

Mrs. Waziri herself loves to shop at high-end fashion shops in London. She recently shopped at John Lewis in London in preparation for the "EFCC job." One source told us that Bukola Saraki, who had promoted her candidacy as EFCC chairperson since last February, funded her trip.

Saraki’s allies in the plot to incapacitate the EFCC include former Delta State governor James Ibori, controversial London-based Nigerian businessman Terry Waya, Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa, and Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro. Saharareporters has learned that Mr. Waya hosted a huge party in his Abuja home three nights ago to celebrate Mrs. Waziri's appointment.

To Terry Waya, the appointment of Mrs. Waziri was a double victory of sorts. Last week, a Stratford Magistrate Court in London ordered the London Metropolitan Police to return his more than £465,000 of his monies initially seized from him in 2005. The court also ordered the de-freezing of his accounts. The orders followed an April 17 2008 hearing. The judge in the case said the prosecutors had failed to prove that the seized funds were proceeds of crime.

Mrs. Waziri, touted by her sponsors as a "no-nonsense" former police officer, had an unimpressive record as a crime fighter. “Nobody can point to a single serious or high profile case she prosecuted in her 35-year career in the police force,” said a source who described her as the kind of officer who made criminals comfortable.

In another development, a reliable source has informed Saharareporters that Mrs. Waziri sold jewelry to the spouses of high profile politicians as well as top police officers.

Apart from direct looting of public treasury, the real estate and jewelry business are the secondary conduits for money laundering in Nigeria. Saharareporters could vouch for how lucrative Mrs. Waziri’s jewelry business was. But several sources told us that she made a fortune from helping corrupt governors stave off investigations by the very agency she is now posted to head.

“Mrs. Waziri’s mandate is to slow down the EFCC,” said one of our sources who is close to Yar’adua. “She will do to the EFCC what the age of Justice Emmanuel Ayoola has done to paralyze the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC).”

One source said Mrs. Waziri is embedded with many of Nigeria’s most corrupt leaders, including Ibrahim Babangida. In addition to being a lover of expensive designer shoes and clothes, she is “a party animal,” according to one source. She was at the recent wedding of Babangida’s daughter to the polygamous governor of Zamfara State.

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