Corruption: How Buhari’s men stopped investigation of billion dollar fraud cases — Obla

 

Vangaurd 

•Investigation of the failure of an oil company to pay the balance of $1.9 billion from an oil block it purchased in 2014 for $2.5 billion
•Investigation of the 80 armoured plated Mercedes Benz S Class found in the premises of an Abuja-based federal director.
•Investigation of some Directors in the defunct Petroleum Equalization Fund whom we found had over $5 billion in their accounts
•Investigation of $12.5 million contract awarded by the Nigerian Ports Authority to a company owned by a former Senator and now Governor to dredge the channel leading from the Atlantic Ocean into Calabar port
•Investigation of oil companies that refused to remit over $3 billion as royalties to the federal government
•Investigation of the purchase of a House in Asokoro Abuja by a then-serving federal permanent secretary
•Investigation of offshores assets of some members of the National Assembly
•Investigation of the failure of commercial banks to remit over N38 trillion collected by them as stamp duties as of 2019
•Investigation of illegal take over of the building belonging to the National Board for Technical Education in Maitama, Abuja by a Nigerian billionaire from Katsina State

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

Barrister Okoi Obono-Obla was appointed Chairman of the Special Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property by former President Muhammadu Buhari but was booted out a few months after his appointment.

In this interview, the outspoken human rights activist explains how some powerful members of the then government he describes as patrons of corruption forced him out for investigating highly placed cronies of the government.

Excerpts:

The patrons of corruption in Nigeria in collusion with fifth columnists in the previous regime were not at ease with my patriotic zeal, courage, resolute, strong character, and uncompromising approach to my schedule and decided to push me out by all means.

It started as far as January 2018 when I was served a letter from the former Attorney General of the Federation directing me what I should not do including waiting for mandate because I could investigate any matter. I was also stopped from talking to the media. It doesn’t need clairvoyance to tell one that all was not well when you are directed to wait for a mandate before you investigate cases of financial crime, economic sabotage, or grand corruption.

However, I disregarded the directives because they were illegal as the law that created the panel had explicitly spelled out the powers of the panel. Then again, on January 31, 2019, I received another letter saying that since I had refused to adhere to that I should only investigate cases selectively given to me by the powers that be, “the panel is suspended until further notice.”

Of course, I knew that the letter was coming from the fifth columnists in the regime, I continued to do my work until 11 August 2019, when I was suspended. While my suspension was pending, the panel was disbanded in September 2019.

I was investigating some dangerous cases that had remained a no-go area for a long time. Some of them included the $7 billion that was given to banks as bailouts since 2016, which they had refused to pay back; investigating the report of the Judicial Commission into how Nigeria Airways was bankrupted but which report was left to gather dust in government shelves, the failure of oil companies to pay to the federal government royalties and other rental fees amounting to more than $3 billion to mention just but a few.