October 4, 2008
SaharaReporters, New YorkIn yet another indication that Umaru Yar’adua’s regime is content to pay only lip service to the crusade against corruption, the recent revelation that Dr. Jerry Agada, a Nigerian junior minister in charge of education, had purchased an N80 million mansion attracted little media attention and no action from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
It was the second time a minister in the Yar'adua government bought a mansion while claiming that someone else owned the property – or that he had obtained a bank loan.
The first case involved the controversial Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa. In a terse press statement, he claimed that the house in question belonged to a cousin, Robert Onyia. That tenuous and demonstrably false claim was never investigated by the Yar’adua regime. According to a minister in the government, “The president has received numerous security reports about Aondoakaa’s corrupt ways, but they continue to look the other way.”
Till date, Mr. Onyia never stepped forward to claim ownership of the house and Aondoakaa has not provided evidence that Onyia owns the house.
In the case of Dr. Agada, the Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, the EFCC Chairperson, Mrs. Farida Waziri, and the Senate President, David Mark, are combining forces to put out the scandal by persecuting the petitioners.
Agada’s underhand real estate dealings first came to public attention when the original real estate agents who helped him find the house in Abuja found out that he went behind their back to purchase the house. Miffed that Agada had denied them their commissions and "agency fees" that amounted to N8 million – or 10% of the cost of purchase – the agents squealed on the minister.
Led by Tony Omoigberale, the agents approached two self-styled Abuja-based anti-corruption lawyers, Charles Ogboli and Ugochukwu Osuagwu.
On September 15 2008, the two lawyers sent a jointly signed petition to the EFCC chairperson. They drew her attention to the pricey buy by a serving minister, whose annual income was less than N1 million . The property is located at No 12, Bujumbura Street, Wuse II, Abuja.
Soon after the petition reached the EFCC, Senate President, David Mark, called Mrs. Waziri to urge her to “kill the case.” Agada was Mark’s nominee for a ministerial appointment. The senate president is also the junior minister’s “godfather”. The Senate President and Agada are both Idoma from Igalaland, the kingdom of the Idomas in Benue state.
A top official of the EFCC familiar with the case told our correspondent that Mark “kept on calling Madam as if there was more to the case. He insisted that the petition should not be investigated."
The official also disclosed that, while pressuring Waziri to toss the case, Mark also recruited the IG of Police, Mike Okiro, to begin a manhunt for Omoigberale and his crew. The real estate agents were declared wanted for extortion. While Omoigberale evaded arrest, his female partner, one "Ify,” was not as lucky. The Federal Capital Territory Police Command arrested and detained her in lieu of Omoigberale.
When Mark’s pressure mounted on Waziri, she reportedly shielded the petition away from investigators in the EFCC’s investigative unit. Instead, she sent it to one of the new amorphous units that she recently created.
One of the new sections, tagged "Intelligence Unit", is headed by Suleiman Abdul. Another, named "Monitoring Unit," is headed by CSP Umaru Mamman Sanda. Several EFCC insider sources have told SaharaReporters that the two units were designed to give soft landing to corrupt public officials and powerful Nigerians who might enjoy close ties to Yar'adua and his cronies.
One EFCC source told SaharaReporters “the Intelligence Unit has abandoned the investigation of the lawyers' petition against the Minister. What is being done now is the consideration of the minister's petition against the original petitioners." The official added that this “is the first time that there will be a petition against a public officer and the EFCC will not invite the suspect. Instead, it is investigating a counter-petition from the accused person. This is shocking."
Another EFCC informant told us: "The Minister has been shouting in the media that he secured N100million loan from First Bank of Nigeria Plc, but he has not presented any document to the EFCC. Instead, he wrote a petition and on daily basis, he calls investigators for a letter of clearance to present to the Presidency so that he can retain his job as a junior minister or even get a higher position.”
A top politician from Benue State told our correspondent that "The Senate President does not want the Minister to be dropped by Yar'Adua. That’s why he’s doing everything to give Dr. Agada a clean bill of health.”
But a source close to Aso Rock told us that Yar'adua does not really care about petitions about corruption in constituting his cabinet. “You can imagine that Yar'adua's current cabinet is being constituted by three of the most corrupt political figures at the moment – Mrs. Turai Yar'adua, Bukola Saraki, and James Ibori.”
Frustrated by the complicity of the EFCC in shielding Agada, the lawyers who signed the original petition on Thursday headed for a Federal High Court in Abuja. They have filed a case in which the Minister, EFCC and First Bank of Nigeria are defendants. The attorneys are seeking seven reliefs, including a "determination whether the EFCC is under duty to act on the petition of the plaintiffs dated 15/09/2008 and in line with Sections 5 and 6 of the EFCC Act, 2004 to conduct an investigation and examination on the First Defendant (Minister) as to the source and intendment of the N80 million used in purchasing a duplex in Wuse II, Abuja.” In addition, they want a determination whether a Minister of State, i.e. a public officer, who bought a duplex worth N80 million barely four months after his appointment can cause a reasonable suspicion that such money could be looted public funds and thus liable to be investigated.
The lawyers are also asking for an “order directing the management of First Bank of Nigeria Plc to produce before this court, the terms and conditions, repayment plans and collateral used by the First Defendant in securing the purported N100 million loan availed him by First Bank of Nigeria Plc in purchasing the duplex at Wuse II.”
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