Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, along with
the Director General of the Department of State Security (DSS) and
newspaper publisher Nduka Obaigbena, has commenced a full-scale war
against Ibrahim Magu, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC).
Under the scheme, Magu will be replaced with a man, already identified, who is
more amenable to the ways of Mr. Kyari and other kitchen cabinet persons.
Sources at the Presidency said there has been a cold war between Magu and
members of the President’s kitchen cabinet, who seek to interfere with ongoing
corruption cases at the EFCC.
Matters reportedly came to a head recently when SaharaReporters did an
exposé that revealed how the Chief of Staff perverted an investigation that the
commission had commenced against a powerful indigenous oil company, Sahara
Energy, with Mr. Kyari directly accusing Magu of being the brain behind the
leaking of the story.
Related issues of contention include the planned commencement of the trial of
Jide Omokore, a shady businessman known to have been involved in multi-
billion oil deals with former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-
Madueke. The Chief of Staff had apparently assured Mr. Omokore that he would
not be prosecuted by the EFCC.
Our sources revealed that Magu’s letter of nomination to the Senate for
confirmation was delayed by the Chief of Staff and the Attorney General of the
Federation because of Magu’s “intransigence.”
On the part of the DSS, sources within the administration say Magu was held to
have stepped on their toes by constantly questioning why they usurped the role
of EFCC in carrying out raids into the homes of corrupt former government
officials, which is the domain of the EFCC. The DSS reportedly raided at least
30 homes of officials and aides of former President Goodluck Jonathan, but only
managed to deliver a meager N47m and $1.943m. Worse still, some of the
monies recovered were never delivered to the federal government treasury and
during reconciliation, some of the foreign currencies were found to be fake.
In that connection, the sources cited the February raid on the Abuja home of the
son of Ngozi Olojeme, who was axed as Chair of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust
Fund after Buhari came to power. While the DSS agents reportedly found
$500,000, only $50,000 was delivered to the Treasury. Olojeme was never
prosecuted either, where she would have revealed exactly how much money she
lost.
The tension between the EFCC and the DSS grew to unimaginable proportions
until yesterday when the DSS raided the home of a member of the Arms Probe
Committee, Air Commodore Umar Muhammed (rtd.) who reportedly had
$1.5million hidden in the premises in Abuja from bribes he purportedly received
on behalf of other panel members. The reporting of the story appeared in
Thisday newspaper, owned by Nduka Obaigbena, the publisher of which had
been forced by the EFCC to return monies he collected from the office of the
National Security Adviser for a contract that was never implemented.
Knowledgeable sources in government and law enforcement told
SaharaReporters last night that Obaigbena was stopped from traveling to the
United Kingdom last weekend by airport immigration officials who told him he
was on the EFCC no-fly list.
The sources say Mr. Kyari, a former member of the Editorial Board of ThisDay,
then intervened, following which Obaigbena was eventually allowed to travel the
next day. He is now in London. Sources at the EFCC said that by securing
Obaigbena’s travels, Mr. Kyari, and the DSS DG apparently obtained his
cooperation to commence a media war on the chairperson of the agency.
Despite Obaigbena being on the security watch list of the EFCC, Mr. Kyari and
Information Minister Lai Mohammed recently organized a high-profile meeting
between President Buhari and the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria
(NPAN) at the Presidential Villa in which the publisher featured prominently.
Mr. Mohammed had his issues with Magu as well, as the EFCC boss had frozen
about N10b in funds of the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) as former
officials there began last-minute looting. Mohammed intervened to get Magu to
unfreeze the account so that it could be used while he awaited approval of his
budget, but Magu refused.
The minister also reportedly sent a request to the EFCC chairman to return
monies retrieved from Obaigbena and other newspaper proprietors who were
caught in the $2.1b scandal, but Magu also refused to budge. Furthermore, Mr.
Magu and his officials are said to have extended their probe to include others in
the media that include another publisher, Comfort Obi, whose account was also
frozen. SaharaReporters has it on indisputable authority that the Chief of Staff
and Mr. Mohammed took those proprietors to meet with President Buhari, but it
is unclear if he gave them any concessions.
ThisDay’s role in releasing information about the arrest of the retired Air
Commodore accused of receiving a bribe was consolidated as his travel ban
was lifted, one source revealed.
Speaking to SaharaReporters by phone from London on Wednesday, Obaigbena
confirmed that he was actually stopped at the Murtala Muhammad International
Airport last Sunday but claimed it was because of an EFCC warrant left at the
airport last December. He denied that anyone intervened to facilitate his travel
thereafter, but did not state how the warrant was overturned except saying that
the head of the Immigration department in Abuja apologized to him by phone.
Asked about his relationship with Kyari, he admitted that Kyari once served on
the Editorial Board of his newspaper
SaharaReporters has learned that DSS is making moves to invite Magu for
interrogation and possibly detain him claiming that retired Air Commodore Umar
Muhammad from Bauchi took $300k from some persons under corruption probe
so that they could hold a meeting with Magu during his visit to IDP camps in
Maiduguri two weeks ago. It is unclear if Magu had such meetings.
Air Commodore Umar Muhammad appears to be the best shot yet at Magu
from the onslaught launched by Abba Kyari and his collaborators.
SaharaReporters learnt that the Arms Procurement Investigation Committee had
also been fractured along lines of bias, as pressure was mounted on them not
to probe a former Chief of Army, Lt General Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau, who
is now the Minister of Internal Affairs. Magu and a few others are said to have
favored inviting and investigating him.
Crying foul, the EFCC in a press statement on Tuesday contended of the
ThisDay report linking the agency to corruption associated with retired Air
Commodore Umar, that this is simply a case of corruption fighting back .
People knowledgeable about the retired Air Commodore said he was married to
late oil Minister Rilwan Lukman’s daughter and that he has always lived a
flamboyant lifestyle close to former Presidents, including late President Umar
Yar’Adua. They characterized him as a conduit for passing funds to other
Heads of State and governments in Africa. During former President Jonathan’s
era, for instance, he was said to have been a go-between with several African
Heads of State, particularly those of Niger and Ghana. He runs a massive office
in Abuja where he refers to himself as “Don”.
His posh home in Abuja reportedly has at least 50 luxury cars, and he was
regularly in the company of high-profile local and international visitors. Former
FCT Minister Bala Mohammed was a regular visitor to his home, and he
reportedly was involved in passing money to the Chadian government during the
botched Boko Haram negotiation involving Hassan Tukur, the former Principal
Secretary to President Jonathan, who was arrested two weeks ago.
It is unclear how the retired Air Commodore, given such profile, was put on a
panel by the Buhari government to investigate high-profile corruption cases.
If Magu is removed from the leadership of the EFCC, the Chief of Staff and his
collaborators plan to replace him with another police officer so far simply
identified as “Abdulrahman,” an instructor at the Nigerian Police College in
Kaduna.
“Abdulrahman” is said to have once worked with Farida Waziri, during the
darkest days of impunity and corruption in Nigeria, and appears to be the
kitchen cabinet’s perfect replacement for Magu as they will control him just as
Farida was controlled by Umaru Yar’Adua’s Aso Rock gang.
The DSS probe, our sources were unanimous, is aimed at generating a report
that would end Magu’s tenure.
The vultures are gathering now,” a political analyst said in New York on
Wednesday.
“If Buhari cannot find the conviction to chop off the head of the crocodile he has
reared as a pet in Aso Rock,” he continued, “ his anti-corruption claims will be
in silent mode by the time he returns from the United Nations General Assembly
in September, and will be the laughing stock of the world by the time he reads
his Christmas speech.”
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