The New Challenges We Both Face- A Response to Festus Keyamo

Dear Mr. Keyamo: Thank you for your response to me, which you have also made public. I’m sure you are aware that we have published it on SaharaReporters as well, even though you didn’t send it directly to me. I do understand your dismay at the fact that I published this publicly; but, just as you stated in the same vein, it is necessary “for people like you and I who insist on transparency in public life” not to act as though we have things to hide. It was posted as a matter of public information. At that point, it was only a request that you make your position publicly known on the issues. Now that you have responded, people can make their comments or make up their own minds about the matters I raised. For now, let me comment on your response in the same open manner we’ve been dealing.

(1) Your account of our personal relationship is replete with a lot of misinformation, which goes to show that we really don’t have the kind of personal relationship you’re claiming. I had not met you at the time of the formation of the National Conscience Party (NCP) on October 1, 1994 by which time I had actually graduated from the University of Lagos where I was a Students Union president and had been in national political activism for sometime. True, I was attacked by student cultists in March 1994, but I went for my National Youth Service between 1995 and 1996 and though I can’t readily recall now what exact date or time I met you for the first time, I do know that it was when I answered the invitation of Chief Gani Fawehinmi to his chambers at about this time. Chief Fawehinmi had invited me to inquire about my health and other things. After my meeting with him, he introduced me to the lawyers in his chambers. You were a junior lawyer there at the time and it was in that capacity you were introduced to me along with others who were there on the day. The person amongst you I knew well before then was Ebunola Adegboruwa (Big Sam). I did not get into any kind of discussion with you about my health or my plans to travel or anything of the sort. If I met you again, it must have been during his birthday party around the same period at his home. So, all this story of knowing you or being your friend for the past fifteen years is news to me. Yes, I can remember sending you emails and having telephone conversations with you a few times in the last few years to commend you for your activism, but that is only an acknowledgment of the good work I thought you were doing to hold our leaders accountable. Indeed, it is on the strength of the regard I have for you as an uncompromised activist (who in email exchanges and phone conversations had indicated keen interested in using the reports of SaharaReporters to pursue legal actions against people who ruin our nation) that I wrote you the letter that is now the subject of our present exchange. It was simply asking you to stay the course. Anyone can see that it was not an accusation of impropriety on your part.

(2) From my account above, you can understand when I say I’m baffled by your claim that I visited your office in Maryland “a number of times” to intimate you about my intentions to travel abroad to treat myself. You know this is a terrible lie, the purpose of which I cannot definitely determine - except to conjecture that you are saying this to keep up the appearance of our supposed closeness. I don’t know your office or your home or your social watering holes because I simply do not know you on those levels. You again claim I visited you when I was in Nigeria “a few years ago” (you didn’t state where), but again, how can this be true when it never happened? If indeed, you are my friend the way you are making out and if indeed I visited you after such a long time of going for this supposed medical treatment, why did you not ask me then about my health or the medical treatment? What could we possibly have discussed on the day that was more important than my health or travel? Why make apologies about that now in your response? Of course, you didn’t ask me because it never happened. I have no problem describing you as a friend, but you don’t have to concoct lies to show the extent of it.

(3) Contrary to your insinuations that my life revolved around my medical problems or the cult attack, I did not leave Nigeria until the military had departed from power. My life at the time was dedicated to the pro-democracy struggle. Our colleagues, common acquaintances and activists in the pro-democracy movement would attest to the fact that I was very active especially in the United Action for Democracy (UAD) and also as one of the brains behind several civil society flagship actions against military rule, including the famous "Five Million Man March Against Abacha". I also led the activists that took over the burial of Chief M.K.O Abiola and on the day gave a funeral oration that was published in the TELL magazine in 1998. In my last engagement before leaving Nigeria, I led thousands of students to demonstrate against military excesses at the National University Games (NUGA) in 1998 at the University of Lagos. I was arrested and detained alongside Saint Omotaje (OAU, Ile-Ife) and Ponmile Oloyede (SUG President, UNILAG) for two weeks on the orders of Rear Admiral Mike Akhigbe. I was represented in the ensuing case by Sam Adegboruwa of Chief Gani Fawehinmi chambers and you never were part of it in anyway. My arrest and detention at the NUGA protests would mark the eighth time I had been detained and tortured by the authorities. If you knew all this, you could only have known it as any other Nigerian following national development at the time, not because I visited you or told you since we never met or talked at the time.

(4) You insinuated that I might have “falsified medical papers to travel abroad in search of a better life which is the worst form of corruption”. Okay, you are not saying so yourself, but merely advising that, “as a friend” I should send you “the duly authenticated medical records” so you know “how far the treatment has gone” to avoid “bad people” making the wrong insinuations. Well, thank you for your concern, but it would help if you cut out the veiled lies. Did I come to you for money to travel abroad for medical treatment? Why should my medical history be a great issue now simply because I wrote to you asking you to clarify your position with regard to the present corruption cases in your role “as a self-avowed public conscience and commentator on matters of corruption, abuse of office and human rights violations”?

(5) If anyone is interested in how I came to the United States, I am more than prepared to say and I would take the opportunity you have offered me here to say it. Originally, it was the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) that arranged for me to go to the Medical Foundation in London. At the time also, another group in Switzerland offered me the same opportunity. But I didn’t take these. When I left Nigeria in February 1999, it was to the American University in Washington, DC for a conference. It was while I was there that Amy Goodman of ‘Democracy Now!’ contacted me to say that she could help me get checked at Bellevue Hospital under the New York University Torture Survival Program. I went through the program where I was treated for a year under the direction of Dr Allen Keller. I came back to Nigeria in June 2003 to be with friends and family after two years study at Columbia University in New York where I obtained a Masters degree. At the time, I appeared on a nationally televised TV show “Soni Irabor Live” where I talked extensively about my travel and medical treatment. I returned to the US and made the decision thereafter to settle in the country. The key point is that I am here legally. All I have stated here is freely available in several newspaper reports in the Nigerian and US media and is freely accessible on the internet as well.

(6) I am a little worried that you have, wittingly or unwittingly, couched our present exchange as a pro and anti-Ribadu affair. In that guise, you have taken the liberty to express your anti-Ribadu sentiments while painting me as some kind of pro-Ribadu person. The idea, of course, is to give the impression that whatever I am doing now as part of my consistent mission to hold persons in public service in our country accountable is only being done to discredit those who have replaced Ribadu or those we can now consider his enemies. Nothing can be further from the truth. In my work with SaharaReporters, I consistently opposed Mr. Nuhu Ribadu’s role as an attack dog or enabler of the Obasanjo regime; but you don’t expect me to begin to trumpet lies being told against him if I find these to be so. You obviously are miffed by the fact that SaharaReporters exposed the lies about his alleged properties in the UK and the US and on that basis you have categorized us as part of the Ribadu propaganda machine. Yet, all this was about was to hold the EFCC to a higher standard of investigation. By doing so, we were challenging the competence of an internationally acclaimed agency to carry out thorough investigations before rushing to the press. While we do not intend to replace the police or the EFCC, we are at least able to make use of tools freely available within and outside Nigeria to carry out thorough investigations and provide evidence where available to the public. If you are going to accuse Ribadu of anything, please let it be true, not embarrassing lies that could easily be exposed by the most amateur investigator who does not even need to leave his computer! These were not accusations made by any Tom, Dick and Harry; they were made formally by the organization you now represent, an organization run on public funds, an organization that owes Nigeria and Nigerians better standards than the shoddy accusations leveled against Ribadu, whatever the rightness or wrongness of his actions. As you know, SaharaReporters did not go out of its way to report on these. We merely investigated the information provided to the press and the public by your clients, the EFCC and came out with our findings. Mind you, we have repeatedly said that we cannot vouch for the truth or otherwise of the EFCC’s claim that Ribadu owns property in Dubai. This is because we do not have access to the United Arab Emirates' land registry information. However, we did reach out to the lawyers who sued Ribadu on the matter to furnish us with the details of the ownership of the Dubai property and so far, they’ve provided us with nothing. These findings are published on our website and we are aware that it is also subject of an ongoing litigation before an Abuja High Court. If today or tomorrow you find anything on Nuhu Ribadu that you think the public should know, do not hesitate to send it to us. The only thing is we will investigate and let Nigerians know our findings, because our duty is to inform the Nigerian and international public, no matter whose ox is gored, including Ribadu’s. Frankly, I would have thought that –given your avowed loyalty to the truth or to Nigeria-you would find your clients’ conduct totally unprofessional and unacceptable and tell them so, rather than turn round to accuse us of bias when the facts we presented from our investigation could not be impugned by you or your clients.

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(7) Now, you did mention Ribadu’s home in Abuja, which he got through his father-in-law and on which his lawyers have made a detailed statement. While for me personally this is questionable, the fact remains that the information about that is now in the public domain and both parties are not disputing it. It’s left for Nigerians to look at the facts and judge Ribadu accordingly. But what you cannot do is compare what Ribadu has done in that transaction with what Mrs. Waziri has done with the properties she acquired since assuming office as EFCC chairperson. Mrs. Waziri has not admitted to the ownership of the properties. What the evidence available so far indicates is that she got this property on Trent River Street through the discretionary dispensation of a minister she was supposed to be investigating. The subsequent transfer of ownership of the said property to her daughter smacks of an attempt to hide true ownership. You have offered a tepid defence of her based on, I dare say a false representation of the facts. Mrs. Waziri’s daughter did not buy the property from her mum because the latter had no money to pay, neither is anything on record to indicate that her daughter’s husband paid for it. What is on record is that an EFCC operative, Mohammed Bako was used in a clearly shady manner to accomplish the transfer. The question is why? Is this a transparent transaction in your opinion? Are there no public accountability issues clearly arising from this? The fact that you as a savvy observer of public actions now accept this as above-board, going as far as to defend this in our public exchange worries me greatly.

(8) I cannot accept your excuse that you cannot speak up now against Mrs. Farida Waziri and Mr. Michael Aondoakaa because you have seen no “duly authenticated documents” about their involvement in corruption. I don’t know what you mean by “duly authenticated documents”, but investigative journalism is not dependent on official sanction of incriminating documents when the aim is to expose them. We have provided valid documents to the Nigerian public in our reports and so far, as you know, no one has accused us yet of providing forged or fake documents. Some of these documents and corrupt actions by these persons you have conveniently ignored are listed below:

(a) The secret letter from the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa sent to Mr. James Ibori's lawyers, which included outright lies about his status was provided by SaharaReporters and carried by The Punch newspapers.

(b) The letter from the Attorney General and Minister of Justice Mr. Michael Aondoakaa addressed to the French authorities to exonerate former Minister of Petroleum Resources under General Sani Abacha, Mr. Dan Etete was again provided by SaharaReporters. This letter was written after Mr. Aondoakaa received a hefty bribe and was aimed at convincing the French authorities that Etete was innocent on the Nigerian side. This letter was duly ignored by the French court that later sentenced the former minister to jail in absentia.

(c) A report detailing how the minister purchased a house -23 David Bamigboye Street, at the Apo Legislative Quarters, Abuja worth N110 million from a former member of the House of Representatives Mr. Kayode Amusan from Ogun State. Though he explained it away as belonging to his cousin, a certain Mr. Robert Orhya; yet up till now, Mr. Aondoakaa has staunchly ignored our challenge that he produces the title and documentations in the name of the said Mr. Robert Orhya or cause the latter to do same to support his claim.

(d) A memo written to the Nigerian Law Reform Commission requesting N1.1 million. This amount was requested from each department of the Ministry of Justice for a mere press conference.

(e) Information about the chassis numbers of two cars Mr. Aondoakaa received from former Abia State governor Orji Uzor Kalu as bribe.

(f) Mr. Aondoakaa’s curious stoppage of the prosecution of businessman Jimoh Ibrahim on forgery charges even where the EFCC had claimed it had a watertight case against him complete with solid evidence.

(g) The withdrawals of cash by the EFCC chairperson in the name of “Information Fund” were itemized with dates, names of officials involved and the amount of money withdrawn.

(h) On the property at 10 Porto Novo Street, Wuse II, Abuja SaharaReporters has provided the necessary information to back this up already. We presented facts about the location of the house and the existence of a N5 million Access Bank draft paid on the property.

(i) On the property at Plot 1460, 25 Trent River Street, Maitama, Abuja SaharaReporters provided overwhelming documentary evidence of Mrs. Waziri’s corrupt dealings and shenanigans with regard to true ownership of the property.

(j) On the armored Mercedes Benz GL (SUV) gift to Mrs. Waziri from Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, we gave the chassis number as WDC 1648711A 390877 and the colour as black. Some interesting facts here are that when the Akwa Ibom State Governor denied the initial story, we followed up with revelations of the identity of the seller, Mr. Charles Ahize of Atlantic Motors who is well known to you. You told me in earlier phone conversations that Mr. Ahize had denied to you that he supplied the vehicle. Yet, up till now, Mr. Ahize has not publicly denied this and you didn’t think it wise to ask him to do so if he felt our report was untrue neither did you find it wise to encourage Mrs. Waziri to come out publicly to deny this as well. Of course, on your part, you publicly kept silent as well.

(9) The above list, as most Nigerians and well-wishers of Nigeria who’ve been following our work would attest to, is not exhaustive; but I need to just make the point that whatever is holding you back has got nothing to do with lack of evidence or information to at least put you on inquiry. For instance, I find it surprising that you are still asking for further evidence from me on the “Information Fund” business when in fact you could have simply requested the EFCC authorities to address the issues raised in the report. I expect you to also be able to ask the EFCC to furnish you and me with Nuhu Ribadu's "Information Fund" expenses, since you have access to the leadership of the organization. Throwing back the challenge to me to provide you with documents actually negates the earlier promise you made to me to investigate the matter before responding to my letter. Also, on Mrs. Waziri’s Porto Novo property, I would have thought as someone maintaining a prominent law office in Abuja you would have been able to simply check the details of this transaction with the Federal Capital Territory officials in the city, since you said you would condemn the act, if found to be true. After all, we did provide a photograph of the building in question.

(10) I note that in reference to Ribadu, you stated that you “disagree with those who now seek to build our collective struggle to enthrone a corrupt-free society around a policeman who was picked by a corrupt dictator, bent on perpetuating himself in office, to do his bidding” and that “when it came to the crunch, this same policeman refused to lift a finger, despite a mass of evidence” against certain persons you listed. The people you listed are Andy Uba, Alao-Akala, Bode George, Femi Fani-Kayode, Kenny Martins, Professor Borishade, Iyabo Obasanjo and Nasir El-Rufai. I can’t agree more. However, what I have to point out to you and Nigerians is the fact that we at SaharaReporters did as much if not more than any person, group or institution to expose these people and provide the leads that should have helped in bringing them to justice if these were properly followed. I will at this point list the individual cases and remind you, Nigerians and well wishers of Nigeria what role we played and what I think you should be doing now as follow-up to our work:

(i) Andy Uba: I was the first Nigerian to do an extensive investigative report on him, exposing his money laundering case with the FBI. This is documented by Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Uba. The question we need to ask now is why hasn’t the EFCC has still not picked up this individual. He left office nearly two years ago, May 2007 and despite his attempt to buy the governorship seat of Anambra State, the courts have put him in his place. Why hasn't the Mrs. Waziri-led EFCC arrested and prosecuted Mr. Uba? Indeed, in the days before you took up the job of representing EFCC, you told me that based on our story you had taken Andy Uba to court in a civil case. You were so impressed that you said you will be reading SaharaReporters and be taking cases and documents from there to prosecute these people. You said you would be calling me on this level, and sent me all your contact details for same.

(ii) Alao-Akala: Again, we were the first to publish that he was compulsorily retired from the Nigeria Police Force, and provided documents from his sordid past to that effect. We also published charges drawn up against him by Ibrahim Magu formerly of the EFCC over acts of corruption. Although today he’s a Governor, we still think you can improve upon our investigation to eventually bring him to justice in your present capacity and with the influence you obviously command. While I would not recommend that you use unlawful tactics to do this, I believe there is enough leeway in our anti-corruption legislations to get a clearly corrupt governor, in spite of the immunity clauses. At least, you and I know that there is judicial authority in support of investigating a sitting governor.

(iii) Bode George: We have published several reports on Bode George's activities, including tracing him around the world when he suddenly disappeared from Nigeria on a long vacation, first to his concubine's place in Maryland, US and then later to London, UK. We have also published the full content of the Investigative Panel report on Mr. George. So, expect us to pop champagne if and when his prosecution is concluded without a scandalous plea bargain, as we are wont to have now under the present EFCC dispensation. Hopefully, when the time comes, it won’t be a case of the EFCC not having witnesses to fully prosecute him.

(iv) Femi Fani Kayode: Today he’s on trial, but we were the first to do a report about money laundering issues concerning him. We reported in 2007 about an attempt by a certain Chioma Anansoh to smuggle huge amount of cash out of Nigeria through a Nigerian airport. It is welcome development that he is facing justice several months after we provided the lead.

(v) Kenny Martins (Obasanjo's –in-law): Though we haven't written much about this man, we however wrote a detailed expose about one Doris Uboh, a sister of George Uboh, Mr. Martins’ associate. Ms Uboh is now a member of the House of Representatives. In our report, we detailed how she ran way from trial in the US in a criminal case with docket number 1:92-cr-00041-GET-JRS (USA v. Uboh, et al). Doris was the 7th defendant while her brother George Uboh was the 1st defendant. It will interest you to know that George Uboh was a high-level consultant to the Police Equipment Fund (PEF). When a local newspaper culled our story, Doris Uboh sued for libel and I was informed that you are representing the paper-National Daily. You were widely quoted as saying that the case was a weak one claiming that there was not enough evidence to back up our claims on Doris Uboh's fugitive status, yet the EFCC later asserted via a press release that Doris's brother George Uboh was an ex-convict as a way of justifying the criminality of the PEF transactions. I’m not a lawyer, but perhaps if you had taken the Doris case more seriously, you would have detected earlier on that Saharareporters through its meticulous reportorial style unearthed some of the scams before anyone else.

(vi) Professor Aborisade: We did not do any detailed work on him more than what is publicly available.

(vii) Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello: We were the first to expose her corrupt activities as far back as 2006, complete with an exclusive picture of her at the Jakarta Airport as she was being welcomed by John Karamoy, former Chairman of PT Medco Energi International. We also followed up with a detailed report on the child kidnap case in the US. From what we see, the case isn’t exactly going anywhere with the EFCC. You are now in a position to do something about this and we can only wish you luck.

(viii) Nasir El-Rufai: We have done detailed reports about him as well. In collaboration with The NEWS magazine we wrote several reports on El-Rufai (including reports on his associate, Jimi Lawal), the Pentascope deal as well as an indicting interview with Gbenga Obasanjo that led to a lawsuit. El-Rufai sued Gbenga Obasanjo, The NEWS and me as well because of the Gbenga Obasanjo interview. I note that while you are keen to nail Nasir El-Rufai, you have been completely silent over the corrupt dealings of his successor, Aliyu Modibbo who was probed by the EFCC for fraud, but has so far not been arrested and prosecuted. Part of the reason is probably because he remained powerful enough to distribute government lands to key news editors and the EFCC chairperson.

(11) The purpose of putting out the information (10) above about our role in the cases you alleged were ignored by by Ribadu is to let you see that at no point did we drop the ball. We have always been consistent in what we do. Today, Mrs. Waziri and the EFCC or the government of Yar’Adua may be your clients, but we still insist on holding them to the same standards we held Obasanjo’s government and Ribadu at the EFCC. Our commitment remains to the Nigerian people and not to any person or representative of government. Of course, in listing your recent work and achievements with the EFCC, it is not lost on discerning followers of our exchange that you have listed cases that affect former President Obasanjo's family, friends and acolytes as your primary targets. While I find this commendable, I want to remind you that going after a select group of persons put you squarely in the same old boat with Ribadu whom you and the rest of us have criticized repeatedly for being selective in his prosecutions at the EFCC. You know what is at stake today in our country and we know it too. But unlike you, we don't have a huge law firm with huge staff or resources behind us. We don't work with anyone in government and we don't enjoy any protection either. Instead we get hounded by the government of the day – a government you work for in your capacity as a private prosecutor for EFCC. Just last Friday, the Yar'Adua government appointed one Paul Orhii as the Director General of NAFDAC. This is the fellow that is suing me for $25 million before a US District Court in Texas over a report I wrote on his relationship with Aondoakaa. Both of us will have our day in court, but my commitment to the mission of exposing those ruining our country continues unabated.

Mr. Keyamo, I appreciate the effort you have put in to state your own side of this issue and I particularly appreciate the fact that you did not hesitate to state how well –to-do you are professionally and materially, all being as a result of your sweat and hard work. But Nigerians have watched you grow professionally and also as a national conscience through the work you’ve been doing. In the end, the issue boils down to this: Is your work now as a private prosecutor for EFCC compromising your role as an anti-corruption activist, social commentator and defender of public good? If it is not, keep up the good work of exposing those ruining our country by speaking out against them (whether they are in the EFCC or anywhere within government and whether or not SaharaReporters or Omoyele Sowore provides you with “duly authenticated documents”). But if it is, you owe it to Nigerians to explain to them that you cannot continue in your role as a public conscience because of your present work. You can tell them here and now that you are taking a break from that role to concentrate on your work with the EFCC and the Nigerian government. Those who will criticize you will do so; those who understand will give you the benefit of doubt. But at least, you would have been open to them about exactly what the situation is. You cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

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