May 30, (THEWILL) – About two weeks ago, the mass media was awash with the news of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris’ arrest for stealing a whopping sum of N80 billion.
Idris was arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission after failing repeatedly to honour its summons. He was accused of embezzling the funds through bogus consultancies and other illegal activities, using proxies, members of his family and close associates.
He was also alleged to be involved in money laundering activities through real estate investments in Kano and Abuja.
Ironically, Idris had replaced Joseph Ogunniyi Otunla, who was sacked by President Muhammadu Buhari for stealing N2.5 billion from funds belonging to the security agencies.
The former accountant-general of the federation, it was gathered, owns one of the largest real estate portfolios in northern Nigeria, with over 100 properties in his name, including a huge warehouse complex called Gezawa Commodity Exchange in Kano. The smallest warehouse in this complex can conveniently take 100 truck loads of grain.
In addition to the complex, he owns the largest shopping mall in Kano, which he built on the same spot where Sokoto Hotel used to be. According to THEWILL investigation, he had bought the famous hotel for N500 million and demolished it in order to pave the way for the construction of the mall.
Believed to be worth more than N250 million in cash and assets before his arrest, Idris was, no doubt, the wealthiest civil servant from northern Nigeria.
To provide an insight into how he has been able to amass so much money, in 2021, he proposed the sum of N36 million in the 2022 Budget as fund for fumigation of his office to rid it of antelopes, snakes and other reptiles that had been troubling him and members of his staff. One may be forced to wonder if his office is located inside a zoo instead of a commercial and busy part of Garki 11 area of the Federal Capital Territory.
To make matters worse, he tried to justify his request for the ludicrous amount by maintaining that the fumigation would cover all the offices in the 36 States of the federation, in addition to zonal offices in the six geopolitical zones, the headquarters and a treasury academy in Abuja. According to him, the funds allocated for fumigation allocation may likely be much higher than what he proposed.
Following his arrest, the Minister of Finance and Budget, Zainab Ahmed, ordered his suspension before President Muhammadu Buhari replaced him with Anamekwe Nwabuokwu.
But beyond Idris’ brazen inclination to loot public funds, there is no gain saying the fact that by virtue of her role as his supervising minister, Ahmed is allegedly an accessory to the N80 billion fraud. According to sources, who are familiar with the case, there is no way Ahmed can claim not to be aware of what Idris was up to while in office. How was it possible for him to commit such a monumental theft undetected, right under the nose of the finance minister who was his approving authority?
Another source, a seasoned public servant who is very familiar with the underground and shady workings of the civil service, expressed the opinion that there was no way Idris could have pilfered such an amount over a period of time, all by himself without help from a high authority on the inside. Or that his supervising minister had not even the slightest inkling about the looting. This source noted that the finance minister might have allegedly either looked the other way or she was allegedly in on it.
Hopefully and unlike the case of Babachir Lawal, a former Secretary to Government of the Federation, who is walking around a free man after he was sacked for claiming to have awarded N544 million grass cutting contracts to different companies where he had interests in, the EFCC will convict him for his financial crimes and he goes to jail. Also, let us also hope that he does not get a presidential pardon like former governors Jolly Nyame and Joshua Dariye, both of who looted their respective states dry.
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