BY NSIKAK EKANEM
The Deputy Inspector-General of Police Joseph Egbunike-led panel set up by the police high command to investigate the allegations of fraud levelled against suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, on Thursday submitted its report to the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba.
The panel was constituted on August 2, 2021. The setting up of the panel was sequel to an indictment of Kyari in a case involving a notorious internet fraudster, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, who was involved in $1.1million scam of a Quatari businessman in the US District Court of California.
The court had ordered the arrest of Kyari, who denied that Abbas paid N8 million to him to effect the arrest of a rival in Nigeria.
Following the indictment, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation served the court processes on the Nigeria Police.
A statement issued by Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, a Commissioner of Police, said the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, “received the report of the NPF Special Investigation Panel (SIP) investigating the alleged indictment of the erstwhile Head of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), DCP Abba Kyari by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”
The report was submitted by the Chairman of the SIP, Joseph Egbunike, at the Force Headquarters, Abuja.
He said Egbunike while presenting the report, noted that the panel commenced investigations immediately it was inaugurated on August 2, 2021 and the report submitted was the outcome of “a painstaking, transparent and exhaustive investigative process”.
He said the report presented “contained the case file of the probe, evidences and findings as well as testimonies from Abba Kyari and other persons and groups linked to the matter”.
The statement added that “The IGP assured that a careful and expeditious review of the recommendations would be undertaken by the Force Management Team and thereafter forwarded to appropriate quarters for necessary action(s)”. He reiterated the commitment of the force to ensuring justice for all.
The Police Service Commission had suspended Kyari following the recommendation of the IG pending the submission of the Egbunike panel even as it set up an in-house committee to prepare ground for the receipt of the panel report from the IG.
Force Headquarters had also replaced Kyari with Tunde Disu as the new head of the Police Intelligence Response Team.
The allegation of abetting cross-border crime that Kyari is currently embroiled in is evidentially newsworthy in many dimensions, hence its being the top of the news for weeks now, especially in Nigeria, is undoubtedly deserving. But a cursory look at the past, not quite a distant past, is a pointer that the story making the round is a refresh, with Kyari as the latest character, of corruption charges that always swirl around the neck of some of Nigeria’s top police officers.
It brings to mind the role of George Iyamu, a high ranking police officer, who had a robust parley with Lawrence Anini, a notorious armed robber in the ‘80s. It brings to mind the inglorious era of Fidelis Oyakhilome, at the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. It tells a story that Tafa Balogun, the former inspector General of Police, may not be the last police top brass to fall from grace to grass, just as it brought to fore Sunday Ehindero’s prosecution on charges of corruption after retiring from the Nigeria Police Force, where he rose to the rank of IGP.
Like Iyamu, who was accused of complicity for being an accomplice of Anini, who was probably Nigeria’s most wanted armed robber, Kyari, along with other suspects, is charged with conspiracy. He is alleged to have conspired with Hushpuppi “together with others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, knowingly conspired to commit wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343”.
While Iyamu, who was tried along Anini, was convicted for supplying guns to the Anini-led robbery gang that terrorized Nigeria in the 1980s, Kyari is accused of being privy to criminal engagement between Hushpuppi and his co-conspirator, Vincent Chibuzo.
It was also revealed that Kyari used his position in the Nigerian Police Force in acceding to Hushpuppi’s request to get Chibuzo arrested, detained and tortured following suspicion by the prime suspect in the multi-million fraud that Chibuzo was trying to divert proceeds of the illicit deal with the victim to himself after perceived unhappiness for not being fairly treated in the transaction by Hushpuppi.
The US grand jury’s release also revealed that Kyari was receiving financial inducement for himself and personnel of the police team that effected arrest of Chibuzo. But Kyari, a recipient of Nigeria’s House of Representatives’ honour for his daring and effective crime busting efforts, said through his Facebook page, shortly after his name was mentioned in connection with the crime, that he facilitated the arrest and detention of Chibuzo following Hushpuppi’s allegation that the former was a threat to his family.
The suspension handed Kyari by the PSC, on the recommendation of the Inspector General of Police, pending the investigation of his culpability or otherwise, makes history to be repeated when traced to inglorious end of Balogun’s career in the Nigerian Police Force.
Balogun, who was Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police between 2002 and 2005, was arraigned by Nuhu Ribadu-led Economic and Financial Crime Commission, at the Federal High Court, Abuja on 70 charges pertaining to N 13 billion money laundering and theft after he was compelled to resign.
After making plea bargain with the court, which involved returning the stolen money and property, he was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison. He spent part of the sentence on hospital bed at the National Hospital, Abuja, and was released on February 9, after serving his sentence.
The looted wealth recovered from the Nigeria’s 11th IGP also became a seed germinating another allegation of corruption. In 2008 and 2009, Abdul Ningi-led House of Representatives’ Committee on Police Affairs had asked then IGP Mike Okiro to provide details of the money returned by Balogun.
Okiro had passed the House of Representatives request to Mrs Farida Waziri, who chaired the EFCC then. Consequently, the trio of Balogun, Okiro and Waziri were further invited by the lower chamber of the Nigeria’s legislative body to account for how the N 16 billion allegedly recovered from the jailed IGP developed wings out of the public treasury. It was discovered that some of the houses from Balogun were secretly sold at ridiculous prices to certain persons.
“Yet, after his retirement in 2007, Ehindero was probed of fraud of over N21 million. He was also accused of building about eight superlative houses. The allegation led to seizure of his passport
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In 2007, Sunday Ehindero, who succeeded Balogun also accused his immediate predecessor of employing thousands of police officers with tainted records of crimes. He claimed that bribes-for-the-job was the major qualification of police officers recruited under Balogun’s superintendence.
Yet, after his retirement in 2007, Ehindero was probed for fraud of over N21 million. He was also accused of building about eight superlative houses. The allegation led to seizure of his passport.
The then police officer in charge of budget, John Obaniyi had disclosed under interrogation by Okiro that money smuggled out of police headquarters in Abuja ended up with Ehindero. The former police boss was arrested on September 21, 2012, detained at Kuje Prison after he was slammed with six counts of corruption hovering around alleged embezzlement of over N16 million meant for payment to police personnel as well as procurement of arms and equipment for the Nigerian Police Force.
Ehindero and other defendants in the N16 .4 million corruption case were discharged by Justice Silvanus Oriji, who held that the prosecution failed to prove that the money said to have been embezzled was diverted for the personal use of the accused persons.
Kyari’s alliance with Hushpuppi, whether as facilitator of arrest and detention of Hushpuppi’s estranged co-conspirator or running courier service between the Instagram celebrity, strikes similarity with Oyakhilome’s relationship with Jennifer Madike, a Lagos businesswoman and socialite, who was arrested on drug-related offences in early 1990s.
Madike was also accused of collecting US $ 80, 000 for onward transfer to Oyakhilome, then NDLEA boss, to ease release of two suspected drug dealers. It was a tale of love-gone-sour between the handsome Deputy Inspector General of Police and the suspected darling drug baron.
It was Oyakhilome, who stood out for exceptional enforcement of Muhammadu Buhari/Tunde Idiagbon’s War Against Indiscipline, while serving as governor of Rivers State between 1984 and 1985, that paid dearly with his unceremonious exit from NDLEA on account of his undue relationship with Madike.
While Kyari’s current travail is the latest in the history of corruption cobwebs that have been threatening career of some highflyers in successive era of the Nigerian Police, it goes to show that probably changes effected over time on graft may be only on date and personae involved.
How the Muhammadu Buhari government would go about handling the matter would transcend having bearings on the person of Kyari, as it would most likely serve as yet another yardstick in determining what has changed and whether the “Next Level” mantra of the APC’s second term administration at the federal level is next level of continuity of same thing or discontinuity of old things.
