From being a very a close ally of President Muhammadu Buhari upon his election victory in 2015 to being arrested on the president’s orders in June 2016, Mohammed Umar, a retired air commodore in the Nigerian Air Force and son-in-law of the late ex petroleum minister, Rilwan Lukman, is a cat with nine lives; an evasive security chief with evidently unrivaled capacity to play the system and get around every situation.
He has become the rope used finally to tie Ibrahim Magu, the hitherto powerful chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the noose.
Umar who retired
from the Air Force in 2014 to stupendous and largely unexplainable wealth, had
been head of the Air Force’s Holding Company, the Air Force Properties Limited
and Air Force Chief between 2010 and 2012, and had retired to own numerous
expensive properties in high-end locations in Abuja, Kano, and Kaduna, and owner
of private jet company, EasyJet Limited, among other possessions; this, with a
fairly rich history of alleged involvement in corruption.
About 23 years ago, before the birth
of the fourth republic in 1999, Umar as a young officer of the Air Force whose
salary could not afford a car, was said to have already acquired for himself a
private jet, and was living on such stupendous wealth that confounded several
his colleagues in the Force.
It was not surprising therefore that
upon the formation of the EFCC in 2003 by the administration of President
Olusegun Obasanjo, Umar was said to have been one of the first military
officers to be arrested by the anti graft agency and detained for salary and
procurement fraud in the Air Force.
However, his trial
was later handed over to the military, and he was let off the hook after being
compelled to make refunds.
He subsequently
returned to the Force, retiring in 2014 to own six companies, including a private jet company with a
fleet size of 10 aircraft, it was said. This is in addition to being one of
Abuja’s biggest property owners.
“Many top government functionaries
live in his houses in Abuja,” a security source had noted during his
investigation in 2016. “He also has properties in Dubai and London.”
Ibrahim Magu would later become one
of the alleged occupants of Umar’s many mansions, and that was the beginning of
the trouble that has eventually brought him down.
But despite his rich history of
alleged corruption, by 2015, Umar was already an ally of President Buhari,
having apparently won the president over. And so close was he to the then new
Nigerian leader who rode to power on the high horse of anti corruption, that he
was soon named as a member of a panel constituted by him to investigate
mismanagement of public funds meant for the war against Boko Haram during the
administration of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan.
And with a cache of information on
Nigeria’s security contracts during the Jonathan years, Umar soon became a key
figure in the president’s investigative committee on arms procurement.
However, as opposed to putting his
position to intended purposes, Umar
allegedly deployed it to profitable use, turning the panel, allegedly into a
blackmailing and extortion cartel; a development that soon caught the attention
of the Department of State Security (DSS) then led by Lawal Daura.
Daura, it was said, met with
President Buhari and tabled reports suggesting that Umar had been busy using
his name and other top officials of the administration to intimidate, extort
and blackmail individuals and businesses as well as launder money.
Daura’s report led to Buhari ordering
Umar’s arrest in June 2016. The DSS arrested him and raided his Abuja home on
June 19, during which discoveries of classified documents from the president’s
office, details of government transactions from the Central Bank of Nigeria,
and details of bank transactions belonging to the Office of the National
Security Adviser, among other things, were made.
This in addition to other properties, including 13 luxury cars: One Range
Rover, two Rolls Royce, two Bentleys, one BMW 7-series, one Mercedes 550, one
Lexus Sports, one Audi R8 and one Porsche Panamera GTs were seized.
Apparently, Umar, prior to this time,
had cultivated a relationship with the then new EFCC acting chairman, Ibrahim
Magu. The DSS in a report to the senate then led by Senator Bukola Saraki, to
prevent Magu’s confirmation as substantive chairman of the EFCC, accused Magu
of living in a N40 million-mansion paid for by Umar.
“In December 2010, the Police Service
Commission (PSC) found Magu guilty of action prejudicial to state security –
withholding of EFCC files, sabotage, unauthorised removal of EFCC files and
acts unbecoming of a police officer, and awarded him severe reprimand as
punishment,” the report had said.
“Magu is currently occupying a
residence rented for N40m at N20m per annum. This accommodation was not paid
[for] from the commission’s finances, but by one Umar Mohammed, air commodore
retired, a questionable businessman who has subsequently been arrested by the
secret service.
“For the furnishing of the residence,
Magu enlisted the Federal Capital Development Authority to award a contract to
Africa Energy, a company owned by the same Mohammed, to furnish the residence
at the cost of N43m.
“Investigations show that the acting
EFCC chairman regularly embarked on official and private trips through a
private jet owned by Mohammed.
“In one of such trips, Magu flew to
Maiduguri alongside Mohammed with a bank MD who was being investigated by the
EFCC over complicity in funds allegedly stolen by the immediate past petroleum
minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke.
“Furthermore, the EFCC boss has so
far maintained a high-profile lifestyle. This is exemplified by his preference
for first-class air travels. On 24 June, 2016, he flew Emirate airlines
first-class to Saudi Arabia to perform lesser hajj at the cost of N2.9m. This
is in spite of Mr. President’s directive to all public servants to fly economy
class.
“Magu has fostered a beneficial
relationship with Mohammed who by his confession approaches clients for possible
exploitation, favours and associated returns.”
Following the DSS report, however,
Magu’s EFCC swung into action against Umar, eventually securing, in March 2017,
temporary forfeiture of Umar’s five properties located in the upscale areas of
Maitama and Asokoro in Abuja, as well as Kaduna and Kano to the Federal
Government.
Others included a six-bedroom duplex
with two-bedroom ‘boys quarters’ located at 14 Vistula Close off Panama Street,
Maitama which he allegedly bought for N700m; a castle with a swimming pool and
a mosque located at 1853 Denf Xiao Ping Street, Asokoro Extension which he
allegedly purchased at N860m and renovated at the cost of N66m in 2012.
Also involved are: a four-bedroom
duplex with a ‘boys quarters’ located at Road 38, Street 2, Ministers’ Hill,
Mabushi which he allegedly bought at a cost of N500m; a three-bedroom duplex
and a three-bedroom guest chalet located at 8 Kabala Road Unguwan Rimi, GRA,
Kaduna State allegedly purchased at the cost of N80m while between N75m and
N80m was spent on the renovation; a six-bedroom duplex with ‘boys’ quarters’
and a two-bedroom guest chalet located at 14 Audu Bako Way, Nasarawa GRA, Kano
State.
Umar was also allegedly diverting
about N558 million monthly from the Air Force account. At a court hearing on
EFCC’s case against Umar in February 13, 2017, the agency’s witness, Air
Commodore S. A. Yusahau (retd.), a former Director of Finance and Accounts,
narrated how Umar used NAF funds to acquire the properties.
“I receive all money of the Nigerian
Air Force and disburse it as authorised by the defendant. The Nigerian Air
Force received its funds to the tune of N4bn monthly,” he said.
“Of the N4bn, the actual figure used
in paying staff salary was between N2.3bn and N2.4bn. Out of the remaining
N1.6bn, N558.2m was usually set aside for upkeep of the defendant (Umar), while
N120m was for the office of the DFA (Director of Finance and Accounts).”
He alleged that the N558.2m that was
set aside for the upkeep of the Chief of Air Staff’s office was always
converted to its dollar equivalent and taken to Umar in his house.
Nailing of
Magu
The effort by the EFCC against Umar
failed to convince the DSS and indeed, at the same time, several other
allegations were being made against the EFCC chairman, not least that he was
handing out properties recovered from corrupt individuals to cronies.
In November 2017, Buhari, in a bid to
get to the heart of the issues, inaugurated a three-member committee headed by
Olufemi Lijadu, who later became Chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), with Mr. Mohammed Nami, the current Federal Inland Revenue Service
(FIRS) chairman and Mrs. Gloria Bibigha, an accountant in the office of the
Auditor General of the Federation as members to audit all assets recovered by
agencies of the government from May 2015.
Meanwhile, Buhari also got reports
from a number of foreign agencies to the effect that Magu lacked professional
knowledge of carrying out investigations and was in the habit of leaking to the
media information that compromises investigations just for public praise.
The committee went to work and on
11th September 2018, submitted its report in which several questions were
raised about assets recovered by the EFCC boss, even as discrepancies between
amounts claimed to be recovered loot by Magu and the actual sum transmitted
were discovered. Still, there were discoveries of lack of due process in the
disposal of recovered assets.
The Attorney General of the
Federation and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami who received the report later
addressed the media, noting that in summary, the recovered funds by the
three-man committee is N769 billion cash within the period under review.”
Malami to whose office Magu is
supposed to report but didn’t, had all he needed to nail him. But in the
meantime, Magu believing he had Buhari’s backing continued to act in manners
that not only embarrassed the president, but also went against the law, such as
allegedly raiding the Minna home of former head of state, Abdulsalami Abubakar
and freezing the account of former Army Chief, General Theophilus Danjuma.
On June 20, however, Malami sent a
memo to Buhari with details of Magu’s alleged corruption and misconduct. The
memo alleged, among other things, that Magu had misappropriated and re-looted
funds recovered from corrupt people and kept the proceeds to himself and
cronies.
Malami also recommended that he
should be sacked. The president thus charged Justice Ayo Salami led
Presidential Investigative Panel on Anti-corruption to grill Magu based on
Malami’s allegations. And last week, the EFCC boss was arrested and is now
facing the panel, even as he has since been suspended from office as acting chairman
of the agency, and replaced rather coincidentally with one Mohammed Umar, not
the former Air Force chief.
Interestingly, still featuring on the
list of Magu’s sins was that he rented a house of N20 million annually paying
N40 million upfront, with the sum, said to have been paid by Commodore Umar.
Magu was also accused of living a lavish lifestyle and more recently hiring a
private jet owned by Umar to Dubai during the lockdown in clear violation of
the rules with the excuse that he went to do an investigation.
Source: hallmarknews.com
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