By Issa Aremu
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, May 15, 2018 commissioned the new head office building of anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in Abuja. The office, located along Airport Road, Jabi, in the Federal Capital Territory, will serve as the anti-graft agency’s permanent headquarters after conducting its operations from rented quarters for over a decade. Yours comradely was at the historic commissioning which witnessed Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Patricia Scotland; former South African President, Thabo Mbeki; Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; President Muhammadu Buhari and Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu.
The high point was the joke by the Acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu in his remark. According to him, the 10-storey building approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), during the administration of former president, Goodluck Jonathan, had no “VIP interrogation rooms” as all corruption suspects are equally accommodated. True to his commitment, President Buhari said his administration’s fight against corruption is an attempt to save the country adding that the “objective of fighting corruption remains steadfast. The goal of this administration is to protect public trust.”.
True to the President’s statement, a month after, two prominent former governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Jolly Nyame and Joshua Dariye had been jailed in quick succession by a Federal Capital Territory High Court for corruption after decade long trial process. Nyame and Dariye, both former two-term governors of Taraba and Plateau State respectively, were convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison on corruption charges.
EFCC statement among others reads that the offense of Nyame, “for criminal misappropriation, diversion of public funds, and breach of public trust; and Dariye, criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of public funds. In the course of Nyame’s trial, the prosecution called 14 witnesses and presented documentary evidence, which among other things revealed that the N250 million was shared and never utilised for the purpose for which it was approved. A total of N180 million was diverted to the bank account of Salman Global Ventures Limited, which provided no services for the state”.
In the case of former governor of Plateau State, Senator Joshua Chibi Dariye, 13 years after jumping bail in London for money laundering FCT High Court in Gudu presided over by Justice Adebukola Banjoko on June 12 found him guilty of 15 out of the 23-count charge levelled against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on offences bordering on criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of N1.1billion Ecological Funds for the state and other state’s funds.
Dariye was convicted on 11 counts bordering on criminal breach of trust and sentenced to 14years imprisonment, the maximum sentence provided for by the law. Aside the ecological funds, Dariye was also found guilty of criminal breach of trust as regards N204 million, N53.6 million and N21 million being funds of Plateau State Government.
The court ordered the EFCC to repatriate the N80m and other funds recovered during investigation to the coffers of Plateau State government. In giving the anatomy of public theft, Justice Banjoko held that the court could not imagine the level of “systematic stealing of over half a billion from the state’s accounts,” adding that “Even through the statements of accounts tendered before the court, there were random dates the defendant (Dariye) was richer than the state; he could bail out the state”.
The court held that evidence led during the trial revealed that when Dariye took possession of the cheque of N1.1bn meant for special ecological intervention in the state, he directed that the money be paid to individuals that had nothing to do with the ecological projects in the state.
Dariye in his statement to the EFCC tendered exhibit gave directives for the disbursement of the cheque to include: N100m for PDP S/West collected by Yomi Edu, former Minister of Special Duties; N100m for PDP N/East credited to Marine Float; N66m for PDP in Plateau shared among the 274 wards.
Former deputy Senate president, Ibrahim Mantu was also said to have been paid N10m; Pinnacle Communications got N250m and Ebenezer Retina Ventures, a company owned by Dariye was credited with N176m; and N80m paid to Union Savings & Homes was later traced to Dr Kingsley Ikuma, the Permanent Secretary of Ecological Funds as bribe to secure the release of the cheque. I agree with the EFCC that from “these cases, Nigerians can now appreciate the fact that the EFCC is apolitical, blind to the political colours and affiliations of crime suspects. It will be foolhardy for any politically exposed person under prosecution to think that mere change of political affiliation will guarantee immunity from prosecution.” It’s time we all joined EFCC to damn what late Fela Anikulapo Kuti aptly defined as “Authority Stealing”! Corruption has underdeveloped Nigeria and Africa just as colonialism did. Money meant for roads, rail, public medicine, social security, ecological disaster control, salaries and pensions had been brazenly stolen by few corrupt public officials.
The report of the 2014 National conference which Buhari administration must revisit puts it better; “-Its (corruption!) corrosive impact continues to undermine governance, stability and progress. “-It distorts and undermines efficient allocation of resources, and by extension the country’s capacity for competitiveness. -It reduces the net value of public spending as well as the quality of services, public infrastructure, and the volume of tax revenues; and it encourages misappropriation and misallocation of resources.”
Let’s hail the court that through justice is turning out Executive prisoners in quick succession. The hope is that new entrants to public office will know that it’s all about public service not self aggrandizement.
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