Under the Jonathan administration, it was alleged that to be corrupt and a public thief was an act of pride as the body language of the former president himself was corruption unabated.
The likes of Diezani-Allison-Madueke, Senator Stella Oduah, Tony Anenih, Edwin Clarke, Asari Dukubo, Government Ekpemupolo alias Tompolo etc were untouchables in Nigeria. They could do and undo. The nation’s resources were looted with pride of immunity.
Posh cars, high profile foreign ladies of easy virtues and state-of-the-art mansions, were exclusively for the itchy-fingered on the corridors of power.
They looted our resources, with impunity. They selected choice plots in Abuja and environs for grab and rubbed shoulders with the mightiest global crooks. Today, majority of them are in exile either for genuine medical attention for undisclosed illness or lack of rest of mind to enjoy the loot or running away from the long arm of the law and prayed fervently for the exit of President Buhari from power to stage a return incase their like mind takes over power.
Those of them that remain in our midst are daily visitors to anti-corruption agencies coughing out part of the loot while waiting the ideal time to go to jail for a better Nigeria. That is the power of prayers from the deprived. Ideally, Nigerians could have been allowed the application of jungle justice against those crooks.
On the Malabu oil block scam, an in-depth investigation shows that the Nigerian Government transferred N120billion ($801million) to a company, Malabu Oil and Gas, with a fake address and which was involved in illegality right from its inception.
The company subsequently transferred the wired money to other phony companies with falsified addresses in what can be described as “cloudy scene associated with fraudulent dealings”.
It was earlier reported how Mohammed Bello Adoke, onetime Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, and Yerima Ngama, onetime minister of state for finance in the Jonathan administration, on August 16, 2011, hurriedly and secretly authorized the transfer of the money from a Federal Government of Nigeria Account with JP Morgan International Bank, into Malabu accounts, a day before the resumption of the former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Furthermore, as of the time the Federal Government was transferring that huge amount of money to Malabu, the company was engaged in criminality as it had not only registered using a fictitious character, it also maintained a fake address with the Corporate Affairs Commission.
By creating a fictional character, Kweku Amafegha, and making him one of the directors and shareholders of Malabu at inception, Dan Etete and other promoters of Malabu violated section 563 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA).
Earlier published reports had shown how and why Etete, a onetime Petroleum Resources Minister, created, and sustained the character. Etete, who was convicted of money laundering in France, is also liable by that action, to at least seven years in prison by virtue of sections 190 and 436 of the Nigerian Criminal Procedure Code Act.
“Sections 190 and 436(b) of the Criminal Code Act, is applicable to the conduct of the promoter of Malabu, in that a false representation or declaration was made to induce the Corporate Affairs Commission to issue an incorporation certificate”, said a Bauchi based legal practitioner, Barr. Isa Muhammed.
Muhammed, who compared the Malabu case to that of companies used as fronts by Tafa Balogun, convicted former Inspector-General of Police, urged CAC to deregister Malabu. And if that had been done earlier, we wouldn’t have been talking that now.
“Owing to the false representation, the CAC can approach the Federal High Court under Section 563 of CAMA to seek the withdrawal and cancelation of the Certificate of Incorporation issued to Malabu. It could be recalled in this regard, that in the Tafa Balogun’s case, the Court ordered that the companies incorporated as the vehicles and facilitators of fraud be deregistered by CAC”, Muhammed affirmed
It is not only in its shareholding structure that Malabu committed fraud. Even the address it maintained with the CAC was false.
Malabu Oil and Gas, in its registration papers, maintained with the CAC, had 35 Kingsway Road, Ikoyi, Lagos as its address. It was that address that the company used in its several correspondences with the ministry for petroleum resources for the scam.
A check at the address by this writer however, shows that there is no existing company by that name there. Dredging International Services, a marine and waterway contractor, occupies the address. “We have been here for over 10 years. If Malabu was ever here before, they did not leave a forwarding address or contact when they left. You can go and check on the internet”, a staff of the Dredging company said.
Another address, 43 Kingsway Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, which Malabu used in a 2006 correspondence with the petroleum ministry, also does not exist. No.41 Kingsway Road is a residential home. The next three buildings are a 15 storey service flats operated by Fieldco Limited: Southern Sun hotel; and Golden Gates restaurant.
However, it is to this company with falsified directors and addresses and whose promoters deserve seven years in jail that the Jonathan administration facilitated by Muhammed Adoke, transferred N120billion ($801million) to, with a view to making the whole transfer of $1.1billion.
In what federal investigators described as “curious”, Malabu was not only a phony company; it also transferred the money it receipted from the Federal Government to other equally dubious companies.
THE PHONY COMPANIES
This writer had reported how companies co-owned by one fraudster, Abubakar Aliyu (A.A Oil), a man who is enmeshed in several controversial deals with government officials and agencies, and whom anti-corruption investigators described as “Mr. Corruption”, got about half of the $1.1billion as front for high profile crooks. A total of $523million was transferred by Dan Etete from the federal government funds into companies co-owned by Mr. Corruption (Abubakar Aliyu).
A-Group Construction Company, a firm co-owned by the fraudster, had its address at Plot 1165A Harold Shodipo Crescent, Ikeja GRA, Lagos as was in CAC records. The company got N23.6billion ($157million) from Malabu from the transfer.
An investigative visit to the Lagos address revealed that it is a residential home, the initial occupants having relocated to Abuja since 2010 without leaving behind any contact address.
This writer could not confirm if it was A-Group Construction Company that was in the property before. However, as at the time Malabu transferred the money to A-Group, its registered address with CAC was and remains a fake.
Another company, Imperial Union Limited, received N5.1billion ($34million). The company’s address in its official papers with CAC is Plot 14 Wempco Road, Ikeja, Lagos. The address is non-existence according from my investigation for this report.
“I have been here for about three years and I have never heard of such a company”, said a security guard at Guinness warehouse on Wempco Road.
Perhaps, the most intriguing of all the companies is Novel Properties and Development Company Limited which got N4.5billion ($30million) from the criminal transfer.
Novel Properties and Development Company Limited is co-owned by Abubakar Aliyu, who is listed as one of the four directors of the company in CAC records. The company’s registered address is at 22 Capitol Road, Agege, Lagos.
My investigation shows that two buildings stand at No.22 Capitol Road, Agege – a large residential home owned by a man known as Alhaji Surusu and a small office run by Jide Isma’il, a property consultant. “My company has been here for more than 10 years and we have not received such money from anybody”, said a visibly disturbed Jide.
“We’ve never heard of anything Novel here since we occupied this building. There are only three of us in property development business along this road”, he said
While the claimed address of Novel is on the Lagos mainland, further investigation revealed another company bearing a similar name at 8/10 Broad Street, Western House, Marina, Lagos, on the Lagos Island. At the Marina address, Souki- Novel Limited, the parent company of Novel Properties, along with some Law Firms, occupy the noiseless offices on the 15th floor. The owners of Souki-Novel however said their company only bears a similar name with that of AA Oil.
“I’d feared something like this would happen when I discovered there were two of us bearing the same name” said S.A Agidee of Souki-Novel.
“I complained to the CAC about this and I was told there was nothing wrong with it”, he added.
In order to clear the air on the retainer ship of its name, Agidee wrote to AA Oil’s Novel.
In a letter addressed to Novel Properties and Development Company Limited, Agege, dated June 3, 2004; Agidee brought the attention of Moses Adesegha and Tunji Adeyemi, two of the company’s directors, to the similarity in the name of their firm and his; which he had registered at CAC since 1993. The fake Novel which got a share of the Malabu funds was registered in 2004.
“We believed we should meet with our good selves to discuss the issue of similarity and possibly mistaken identities”, wrote Agidee to AA Oil and copied CAC. “We do hope you appreciate the full implication of this especially in relation to financial issues”, he added. Just like AA Oil’s Novel properties, it is not clear whether the said Adesegha and Adeyemi quoted directors of AA Oil’s Novel ever exist.
After three weeks wait without response from either of the claimed directors or their Novel, Agidee wrote to CAC objecting to the registration of Novel Properties and Development Company stating that the similarity could mislead the public.
Instead of zooming to action, Agidee received a tersely worded reply from CAC telling him that there was nothing wrong with the similarity.
The ministers in the centre of the abracadabra – Messrs Adoke and Ngama and the suspected fraudster Abubakar Aliyu of AA Oil who owns the phony companies could not be reached for comments. Adoke and Abubakar were said to since gone on exile to possibly escape justice until recently, when Muhammed Bello Adoke was bundled back to Nigeria from hiding to face his suspected crime.
The Sudden Amazing Wealth of Alhaji Abubakar Aliyu (AA Oi)
Just imagine watching the only one in town and the most expensive and fastest car in the world driven around your neighborhood by a suspected fraudster whom you know years back as a miscreant without legitimate source of livelihood.
That was what a driver to AA Oil boss did few years back in Abuja before Jonathan was chased out of power. The AA Oil boss is not a new man in controversies. Way back in 2006 when late DSP Alameysiegha, former governor of Bayelsa state escaped from London in controversial circumstance, the superrich (AA Oil Boss) Ebira-Kogi born fraudster was arrested by the EFCC. He was left off the hook suspected by the power of his illicit wealth and the influence of his collaborators in government.
After that, his name and various companies cropped up when investigations into cases of money laundering against DSP came up before the EFCC. Not less than eight of his companies were known to have been very active in Bayelsa state while DSP presided over the affairs of the oil rich state.
Abubakar Aliyu had been linked to several shady deals involving the former governor. He allegedly transferred several billions of public funds into offshore accounts belonging to him and the former governor.
For instance, a source said some of the transactions he handled for DSP concerning the payment of 475, 724.08 British Pounds from his HSBC Account in London, he was rewarded with a top notch contract to build the Governor’s official lodge and that of the deputy in Abuja for an unbelievable over inflated contract to the tune of N4.8billion ($40million).
Again in 2002, an online media revealed that AA Oil assisted Alamieyesiegha to illegally ship out of Nigeria stolen monies from public coffers amounting to 420,000 British Pounds. Destination was London. The money was lodged into Aliyu’s account in Midland Bank London from where it was later transferred to Alam’s account in the same bank. And nothing happened. From there people began to wonder if the Ebira juju had been invoked.
That’s not all. AA Oil has been linked to two major controversies in the last few years, even in the present dispensation. The first one was the rumored sale of a parcel of land to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The deal according to a very reliable source was brokered by him and alleged to have net billions from it. But the CBN Governor as well as other parties involved in the deal denied the existence of anything of that nature. Discreet investigation will expose whatever is hidden.
As Muhammed Bello Adoke finally landed in the EFCC net, Nigerians are patiently monitoring and waiting on how the prosecution is ongoing and those to be arrested and prosecuted along with the embattled former Attorney-General of the Federation.
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
