Unmasking scams in Nigeria’s high stakes corruption cases
A video resurfaced this week of a man strapped in neck and back braces, wearing crutches and being supported by friends as he attended his day in court. It was alleged that the man was the former Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, who, along with some accomplices, is facing 14 charges of stealing […]
A video resurfaced this week of a man strapped in neck and back braces, wearing crutches and being supported by friends as he attended his day in court. It was alleged that the man was the former Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, who, along with some accomplices, is facing 14 charges of stealing and criminal breach of trust. After his ostentatious show of pain, the moment the man left the court, the video showed, he discarded the braces and crutches and crouched in prayer at the head of a congregation. His pain miraculously gone.
Nigerians were outraged, understandably. Such deceit should have no place in our society and a person accused of stealing public funds should not take the entire country for a ride with childish pretensions. Except the anger was misplaced. The man in the video, as fact checks have shown, was not Mr Ahmed Idris, but self-styled whistleblower, Shehu Mahdi, whose antecedents included riling the political anthills in both his native Katsina State and the nation. The video was taken during his 2021 arraignment for defamation of the character of then Katsina State governor, Aminu Masari, whom he alleged had misappropriated some N50 billion. Mahdi had fashioned himself as an activist and whistleblower. For the democratic culture, it might be healthy to have characters in that mould. But having him pervasively employing the same underhand methods of faking illness and the well-worn theatrics of collapsing in court that the people he constantly niggles at have perfected over the years suggests that he would do just as they do when he is in their place.
Mahdi would not be the first person in this country to throw up an act of such monstrous proportions to deceive the law. Olisa Metuh and Dino Melaye have both demonstrated mastery of this scam, as has Ayo Fayose.
After being declared wanted for fraud and embezzlement, former Minister of Petroleum Resources and the always elegant Dieziani Allison Madueke made a dramatic transformation. Pictures of her looking like a wilting reed in harmattan sans expensive wig, with poorly scrapped, greying hair, no makeup and droopy eyes that would put a homeless puppy to shame surfaced. She would tell the court that just as her term in office was coming to an end in May 2015, she was diagnosed with “The most aggressive breast cancer,” requiring her to travel urgently to the UK on May 22 of that year, where she has remained since. Of course, it is possible she is telling the truth. It is also inevitable to conclude that the timing of the emergence of her cancer diagnosis, the change in government and her escape from Nigeria might be all too convenient to be a coincidence.
The very first column I wrote here, “The Art of Fainting in Degrees” analysed that trend starting with Kemebradikumo Pondei, then acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, who during a NASS probe proceeded to “faint” in stages to bring the hearing into the corruption allegations against him to an abrupt end.
It is interesting that in the age of information disorder, or what the lay man would call disinformation, that old videos have often been rebranded to support or project a certain image, discredit certain people or groups or push a certain narrative. Old videos of violence have been reused to make claims about new incidents, videos of armed persons elsewhere have been used to accuse other groups of atrocities or preparing for one. Was the repurposing of the Mahdi video as one featuring Ahmed Idris deliberate or an honest mistake?
One thing that is certain is that it has recentred the crimes Mr Idris is being accused of, that of the theft of N109 billion. It is an incredible sum to go missing under the watch of any public office holder.
Already, over N30 billion worth of assets have been seized from Mr Idris by the EFCC. Do you know what is funny about this? Not funny ha ha, of course, but funny-not-funny. The already recovered assets are already more than the amount allegedly stolen by his predecessor, Mr Jonah Otunla, who was in office between 2011 and 2015.
Mr Otunla will be standing trial for the theft of N24 billion that was meant for some disengaged staff of the PHCN.
He had been coerced by Ibrahim Magu’s EFCC to forfeit some of the stolen money and escape trial. Mr Ogunla agreed to this deal and forfeited some N6.3 billion to the commission and thought he was home free. The Court of Appeal in Abuja has ordered that he be tried for his alleged crime, setting aside the judgement of a lower court that barred the EFCC from prosecuting him.
Instead of fighting corruption, Nigeria has incentivised the act and practice. Mr Otunla, by virtue of entering a deal with Mr Magu’s EFCC and his forfeiture of assets, from a moralist point of view, would be considered guilty (of course, he remains innocent until a court proclaims otherwise). The logic is that you don’t return what you never stole.
This sort of deals and soft landings that the Nigerian state and its anti-corruption agencies have continued to engineer for corrupt officers has allowed the continued pilfering of our national assets. What do these thieves get in return? A slap on the wrist and a go-and-sin-no-more certificate for their crimes. It would not be a surprise if Otunla or Ahmed Idris, despite their record and the allegations against them, emerge as governors of their respective states. This is how we have incentivised corruption.
If the state is complicit, the citizens are as well. Our tolerance for these crimes is increasing. We do not only have funny women’s groups lining up to “protest” in support of public officers being investigated for corruption, like Beta Edu (who remains innocent until proven guilty) but we have both Otunla and Idris still listed at serving Accountant Generals of the Federation on the Central Bank of Nigeria website?
Why is that so? It is honestly hard to fathom other than to claim that the website which, on the whole, looks like a blog page from 1998—drab, crusty and antiquated—unbefitting of an institution of that stature. (CBN, please update your website and its content.) I mention this because I need to segue into changes at the CBN, and FAAN that have got Nigerians into various states of excitement, not in a good way.
Are they moving to Lagos? Apparently, some units of the CBN at least are, under the directive of a president who was the governor of Lagos State and its Lagos-born CBN governor, Yemi Cardoso, who also served as commissioner in the state.
Even if the relocation of these offices is rational devoid of sentiment or some other agenda, as the CBN is trying to argue, it is just too convenient that it is happening under the watch of two Lagosians. So, if allegations of favouritism are bandied about, they won’t be misplaced. Besides, Lagos is not the only city in Nigeria. The offices could have been moved to Benin, Awka or even Kano, or even Lokoja, where Beta Edu had whimsically conjured an airport into existence. If the government of the federation is inviting entities to invest in Nigeria, it should at the very least have the confidence to move offices and its assets to all parts of the country. It could even move different units to different cities to demonstrate its confidence in the country as a whole.
I know skeptics will argue that Lagos already has the structures in place, after all, the CBN facilities are already on ground, and that is true, but on the whole, this relocation, happening now and in these circumstances, water the grounds for valid claims of favouritism.
Ultimately, the question arises. Is there a political reason for it? Considering Lagos’ central role in the president’s politics, this question too is not misplaced. When taken in the context of the investment being made to rehabilitate Dodan Barracks as another presidential palace, the president should be wary of giving Nigerians the wrong impression or the wrong ideas about his intent.
In the final analysis, Nigeria needs to be more circumspect about its approach to issues, to its treatment and diligent prosecution of allegations of corruption and its institutional decisions.