INVESTIGATION: How lawmakers, vice-chancellors hired BDC operator for extortion, bribery scheme

Abubakar Sambo, 44, is an Abuja-based businessman who runs Imran BDC Limited, one of Nigeria’s 5689 licensed bureau de change companies.

In addition to his foreign exchange operation, he also controls other businesses engaging in general contracting and merchandising in Nigeria’s federal capital. One of those other companies is Ama Business Solution, which is at the centre of the extortion and bribery scheme involving members of an ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives charged with probing recruitment racketeering in Nigeria’s federal ministries, departments and agencies.

On the foreign exchange end of his business, one of Mr Sambo’s several clients is Lead British International School (LBIS), a highbrow 15-year-old Abuja headquartered private school with branches in Ibadan, the Oyo State Capital, and Osogbo, the Osun State capital.

Our investigation shows that Mr Sambo has had a long business relationship with LBIS. Those familiar with his dealings with the institution told PREMIUM TIMES he has, on numerous occasions, converted dollars, usually handed over to him in cash, to naira for the school. He would then electronically transfer the equivalent naira amount to bank accounts provided by the school. For a Nigerian-based school that accepts fees in Naira, the sources of the dollars it regularly converts to Naira remain unclear.

So what is the relationship between Mr Sambo, Lead British International School (LBIS) and the embattled House Committee empanelled to uncover corruption but which is now ironically ensnared in corruption allegations? Who owns LBIS, and how did the school become involved in the raging corruption controversy?

The story we are about to tell you will answer these questions and provide additional clarity regarding how members of the House committee structured the extortion scheme through which they received bribes from heads of federal agencies invited to appear before their panel, including vice-chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics and provosts of colleges of education.

We had in our initial report indicated that all heads of federal tertiary institutions were asked to deposit N2 million naira bribe each into an account domiciled in Providus Bank. But it has since become clear that only university vice-chancellors were given that bank account. Rectors and provosts were smarter – they were able to pay N3 million naira each to the committee using different methodologies that made the illicit payments harder to trace.

Back to LBIS. So, who owns the school, and what is its relationship with the bribery scheme? Founded on 24 January 2008, LBIS is 75 per cent owned by Oluwole Oke, a member of the House of Representatives representing the Obokun/Oriade federal constituency of Osun State, who moved the motion that led to the creation of the investigative committee and who became very active at the panel’s public hearings.

Our investigation has now determined that after the House committee met with university vice-chancellors on Tuesday, 15 August, and demanded N2 million bribe from each of them, there were concerns about how to make and receive the illicit payments without being detected by the nation’s anti-corruption agencies and journalists. After some brainstorming, the Committee of vice-chancellors of Nigerian Universities, led by Lilian Salami, the vice-chancellor of the University of Benin, nominated the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jos, Tanko Ishaya, to liaise with the Committee on the matter.

 

Two vice-chancellors said Mr Ishaya, described as a hyperactive professor of computer science, was chosen for the task because of his relationship with the Chairperson of the panel, Yusuf Gagdi, who is an alumnus of his university and who only on 30 March this year chaired a public lecture on “Grappling with the Peace We Seek” at the institution. Mr Ishaya was the chief host at that event.

PREMIUM TIMES understands that after he was tapped to coordinate the bribe payments, Mr Ishaya reverted to Mr Oke, who in turn introduced him to a certain Stella Adoga, who works for LBIS, the Osun lawmaker’s school and other businesses.

Mr Ishaya and Ms Adoga soon began to communicate by telephone. Ms Adoga then contacted Mr Sambo of Ama Business Solution, requesting him to ready an account into which some naira payments could be made for conversion to dollars. She did not tell the businessman who would make the payments and how much would be paid. She only told Mr Sambo to ready the account number and await a call from Mr Ishaya.

On 16 August, Mr Ishaya, the UNIJOS VC, telephoned Mr Sambo as agreed. He asked him questions about forex rates and then requested that he provide a bank account into which funds could be deposited.

The bureau de change operator gave him Account Number 5400495458, domiciled in Providus Bank, to pay into. Mr Ishaya then sent the account details to Ms Salami of UNIBEN, who forwarded it to her colleagues. The vice-chancellors were asked to indicate their institutions’ names on the payment invoices.

Before PREMIUM TIMES exposed the illicit scheme, the arrangement between the parties was for Mr Sambo to convert the naira payments from the vice-chancellors to dollars and then hand the cash to Ms Adoga, who will, in turn, pass it to Mr Oke.

During our initial reporting for this story, PREMIUM TIMES could not reach Mr Sambo of Ama Business Solutions for comment on his role in this transaction. But after days of pounding the streets of Abuja and working the telephones, we succeeded in tracking him down.

At a meeting with this reporter at a popular restaurant in the Wuse District of Abuja, Mr Sambo corroborated our findings but denied complicity in the bribery scheme. He said he was deceived into providing Ama Business Solutions’ bank account for illicit financial flow.

We will surely bring you details of our interaction with the businessman in our subsequent reporting on this matter.

During the reporting for our first publication, we confronted Mr Oke with our findings concerning his role in this bribery saga. Unaware of the full extent of our findings, Mr Oke had said, “I don’t agree with this insinuation (allegation of extortion put to him by our reporter). No responsible member of parliament will ask an agency under probe for employment racketeering (for bribe) and yet be exposing them.”

When told that he and his colleagues were found to use fronts to collect bribes from agencies, he said, “No sane person will make such frivolous allegations against me. I have been out of the country for the past two weeks. We are talking about a serious matter affecting our children, brothers and sisters, yours inclusive, and some people are trying to divert attention from the main issues with cheap blackmail.”

But contrary to Mr Oke’s claims, a PREMIUM TIMES investigation has now revealed how the committee took advantage of Nigeria’s poorly regulated parallel foreign exchange market to create a conduit for the flow of illicit funds without leaving paper or digital trail while leaving room for denials.

The loosely regulated parallel market, also known as the black market, is a cash-based sector without a record of buyers and sellers. Thus, once the transaction is completed, tracing its origin and beneficiaries is difficult.

The BDC model provides the perfect cover to collect money without paper or digital trails. For years, BDCs are frequently used by corrupt officials in Nigeria to steal public funds or collect bribes.

Typically, the bribe is paid into an account provided by a BDC operator while the equivalent in foreign currency is given to the receiver, leaving little or no trail. According to the Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch, the BDC, a rendezvous of physical cash, enjoyed a stupendous level of under-watched activities.

If the perpetrators are caught, they could easily claim it was a legitimate purchase of forex for personal use. That is the false claim now being made by the vice-chancellors.

Bribery, extortion, a cover-up and lying under oath

Rattled by the revelations contained in our report, the committee immediately activated an intense cover-up scheme.

First, the committee denied requesting and receiving monies from agencies, saying this newspaper investigated and exposed the panel to blackmail its members and divert attention from the ongoing probe of recruitment misconduct.

 

The panel then pressured polytechnic rectors to return to Abuja to reappear before it. During that appearance, the rectors, who paid N3 million each to the committee, falsely denied making such illicit payments.

 

“You cannot get us,” Yusuf Gagdi, the committee chairperson, said during that public relations stunt. “As the leader and chairman of that committee, I will protect my members unless and until I am proven otherwise by clear evidence of corruption and involvement by any member.”

Days later, Mr Gagdi’s committee staged another charade, with a delegation of vice-chancellors reappearing before it. The Chairperson of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors, Mrs Salami, and her deputy, Abbas Sagir, did not attend the hearing. Instead, Mr Ishaya, the coordinator of the bribery scheme, was asked to speak on behalf of the vice-chancellors.

In his speech, Mr Ishaya admitted that the vice-chancellors indeed paid money into the account as accurately reported by this newspaper, but claimed that the money was transferred to Mr Sambo for the purchase of US dollars for a summit the vice-chancellors were planning to attend in Birmingham, the UK.

In his false narration, Mr Ishaya claimed the vice-chancellors held a workshop a day after they met with the committee and that it was at that meeting that they agreed to buy dollars because they “need a favourable rate”.

“I think there was somebody who suggested that gentleman (Sambo) and indicated that vice-chancellors who may wish to secure and source some foreign currency from the gentlemen can transfer some money to enable them to travel. That’s what I know as far as that information is concerned,” he said under oath.

The committee did not ask him any questions. Basic questions the committee could have asked include the venue of the workshop the vice-chancellors held, the name of the planned conference in the UK, the identity of the person who recommended Mr Sambo, the favourable exchange rate he offered and whether the vice-chancellors have ever pooled funds to buy dollars.

Mr Ishaya falsely claimed the primary concern of the vice-chancellors was a “favourable rate”. However, our investigation revealed no agreement about the exchange rate between him and Mr Sambo.

ICPC launches extortion probe

The decision by Mr Ishaya and his colleagues to deny paying the committee is out of concern that they could be charged with bribery alongside the committee members, one vice-chancellor told PREMIUM TIMES. “Our decision is based more on self-preservation,” the vice-chancellor said, asking not to be named for fear his colleagues might ostracise him. “Because the moment we agree to have paid the bribe, we will become not just a victim but a participant in bribery, which is against the penal code. Section 73 of the penal code prescribes ten years of jail time for both givers and receivers of bribes.”

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Commission (ICPC) announced on Friday that it had launched a probe into the illicit payments.

Section 8 of the ICPC Act makes gratification a punishable offence upon conviction. Gratification under the ICPC Act is defined as “any person who corruptly asks for, receives or obtains any property or benefit of any kind for himself or any other person; or

“Agrees or attempts to receive or obtain any property or benefit of any kind for himself or any other person.”

Anyone convicted for the offence risks seven years imprisonment.

The move by the ICPC was spurred by the petition PREMIUM TIMES sent to it on 29 August.

On 30 August, Mr Gagdi also petitioned the ICPC to investigate the allegations against his committee.

If eventually prosecuted, the committee members and the vice-chancellors who made the payment risk a 10-year jail term under the Penal Code.

“No public officer shall, whether within the Republic or elsewhere, corruptly accept or obtain or agree or offer to accept or attempt to obtain any bribe for himself or any other person in respect of any act done or omitted, or to be done or omitted, by him in his official capacity, Penalty: Imprisonment for ten years,” Section 73 of the Penal Code stipulates.

Section 73(2) added, “No person shall corruptly give or offer or agree to give any bribe to any person with intent to influence any public officer in respect of any act or omission by him in his official capacity. Penalty: Imprisonment for ten years.”

In attempts to cover up their involvement in the bribery scandal, the rectors and vice-chancellors opted to lie under oath, an act clearly defined as perjury under Section 74 of the Penal Code.

“Perjury is an assertion as to a matter of fact, opinion, belief, or knowledge made by a witness in a judicial proceeding as part of his evidence on oath, whether the evidence is given in open court or by affidavit or otherwise, such assertion being known to the witness to be false and being intended by him to mislead the tribunal holding the proceeding,” Section 74 of the penal code reads.

The law also recognises the sitting of a committee of the parliament as a judicial proceeding. Section 74 (3) states, “Every proceeding is judicial within the meaning of this section if it is held before any of the following tribunals, namely parliament or any committee thereof.”

A PREMIUM TIMES investigation had exposed the lawmakers for the wanton corruption they are perpetrating in the guise of investigative hearings.

The House set up the 39-member Committee following a motion moved by Mr Oke, who asked the House to set up a panel to investigate the widespread corruption in personnel recruitment in government establishments.