Cabal after Oronsaye

BY IDE EGUAGBOR

A fresh insight has emerged on the possible reason for the current travail of the former Head of Ser­vice of the Federation, Steve Oronsaye who was accused of hav­ing colluded with other top civil servants in de­frauding the nation to the tune of N6.2 billion pension fund.

A Federal High Court in Abuja reccently granted the former Head of Service bail following his arrest on Wednesday, July 8.

According to sources, Oronsaye’s current travail was orchestrated by a ca­bal which took offence by the manner the former HoS “attempted to clear the mess created in the mam­agement of pension funds in the country during his tenure as Head of Service.

A source who claimed that the plot was hatched at Kaduna in June, re­called that Oronsaye, as Head of the Civil Ser­vice of the Federation had written to the then Na­tional Security Adviser, Major General Abdullahi Mukhtar (rtd), in a letter ref:HCSF/061/S.1/III/250 dated December 10, 2009 informing the NSA of his concerns about pension administration for retired public servants. That letter read in part:

“You may wish to be in­formed that, prior to the in­troduction of the integrated e-payment, pensions were paid to banks and all the payments were supposedly claimed by the bona fide beneficiaries. However, with the introduction of the integrated e-payment sys­tem, no one has come for­ward to claim the pensions that were hitherto paid to the banks for onward pay­ment to the pensioners.”

The letter, which at­tached a compilation con­taining the names of the supposed beneficiaries and the banks to which the funds were hitherto paid, requested the Office of NSA to involve the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the police, the Department of State Services (DSS) and any other agency that it deemed appropriate, to investigate the matter with a view to resolving all the issues and possibly pros­ecuting all those found cul­pable.

Similarly, the then HOS also wrote to the then Chair of the EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, in a letter reference HCSF/061/S.1/VI/54 dated November 8, 2010, stating that “It will be appreciated if the Economic and Finan­cial Crimes Commission (EFCC) could cause an investigation into the mat­ter with a view to resolving all the issues and possibly prosecuting all those found culpable.”

Between May and July 2010, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) embarked on biometric capturing of pensioners under the auspices of the OHCSF in order to update the records for efficient and prompt payment of pension entitlements. This led to the setting up of a Pension Task Team (PTT) under the chairmanship of Mr. Abdulrasheed A. Maina, then Head of the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Office (CIPPO). Through the Pen­sion Reform Task Team, over 70,000 fake pension­ers were uncovered and removed from the pensions pay list and 34,432 genuine pensioners who had never earned pensions were cap­tured. Furthermore, the Pension Reform Task Team carried out the biometrics capturing all genuine pen­sioners who came forward, both in Nigeria and in the Diaspora.

EFCC investiga­tion into the pen­sion scam

In 2012, the EFCC slammed Dr. Sani Tei­di Shuaibu, former Di­rector, Pension Unit in the OHCSF, Mrs. Phina Ukamaka Chidi, his for­mer deputy and 30 others with 134-count charge of conspiracy, fraud and cor­ruption before Justice Ad­amu Bello of the Federal High Court, Abuja.

In all of this, Oronsaye’s name never came up. How­ever, when the EFCC saw in Oronsaye “an enemy” it chose to “revisit” the state­ment of Mrs. Chidi, whom they alleged had additional information to provide. It is that “additional” infor­mation from Chidi, who escaped mysteriously from the fortress of the EFCC, that the agency is using to “arraign” Oronsaye.

The EFCC has listed companies that benefited from the “pension scam” involving Oronsaye, yet these companies are not being put on trial.

Why is the EFCC forc­ing people to “confess” they have had dealings with Oronsaye?

If the EFCC is rely­ing, in part, on the “audit report” from the OAuGF from 2005 to 2010, where then are the likes of Yayale Ahmed, Ebele Okeke, Amal Pepple and Oladapo Afolabi in all this?

Senate, EFCC and Pension Reform Team

In 2012, when the Senate Joint Committee of Public Service and Establishment and State and Local Gov­ernment Administration probing alleged corruption in the management of pen­sion funds held a public hearing, it was revealed that top government of­ficials whose names ap­peared severally on the list tendered by Maina benefit­ed from the said N260 mil­lion spent on the biometric capturing of pensioners in the Diaspora. At that public hearing, the EFCC never came forward with any position suggesting it was “investigating” Oronsaye.

“Auditor General’s” re­port on pension adminis­tration in the OHCSF from 2005 to 2010 The media had been awash with the report that emanated from the office of the Audi­tor General for the Fed­eration (OAuGF), which “indicted” Oronsaye. The report supposedly covered the period 2005 to 2010. Why then are the EFCC and some segments of the media silent on the period between 2005 and June 2009, when Oronsaye as­sumed office as HOS. One can only conclude that it is part of the witch-hunt.

Even after the OAuGF disclaimed the report through an advertorial, the EFCC and that section of the media continue to shout, “Crucify Oronsaye!”

Oronsaye cross­es the path of Lam­orde

EFCC insiders revealed that Lamorde vowed to “deal with” Oronsaye for “daring” to recommend a merger of the EFCC with other similar agencies in the report of the committee the former HOS headed.

Oronsaye was also deemed to have a mission to cripple the EFCC “fi­nancially” by pushing for the independence of the Nigeria Financial Intel­ligence Unit (NFIU). This no doubt, infuriated the Lamorde-led EFCC, which also accused the Oronsaye-led Presidential Committee on Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of undermin­ing the Office of the then Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation by recommend­ing that the secretariat of the NFIU be domiciled in the Central Bank of Nige­ria (CBN) in line with best practices from around other global partners.

The NFIU link

The EFCC is also using the current Director of the NFIU, Francis Usani to peddle unsubstantiated al­legations against Oronsaye as a person.

After failing to succeed with Norman Sixth Wo­koma and Juliet Ibekaku, Usani’s immediate past predecessors in office, the EFCC has found in Usani a willing yeoman. When Wokoma refused to “play ball,” the EFCC leader­ship got him out. “Ibekaku was forcefully and ille­gally removed from office and quickly replaced by Francis Usani and Musta­pha Abdrahaman in 2013 under the directive of Mr. Larmode and the former Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Moham­med Bello Adoke SAN, when she insisted that the NFIU intelligence can­not be used in a selective manner. This is because the Chairman of EFCC wanted her at that time to assist in suppressing intel­ligence related to ongoing investigations and assets of high-level officials, while at the same time directing his operatives to use the FIU intelligence to harass and intimidate those who have accused the EFCC Chairman of corrupt prac­tices. Although she only advised that the NFIU should be made indepen­dent of the EFCC accord­ing to international stan­dards and as set out by the FATF recommendations through the enactment of the Nigeria Financial In­telligence Center Act, the AGF approved Larmode’s request to remove her vide several memos, some of them back-dated in a fraud­ulent manner to achieve the purpose of bringing the NFIU under the control of Mr. Lamorde. The EFCC Chairman also threatened to deal with her by termi­nating her appointment. The case against her con­troversial removal is now pending before the Indus­trial Court.

Pension scam

It’s on record that EFCC Chairman also removed an­other EFCC staff, Mr. Mike Nzekwe for questioning the corruption going on in EFCC and the extortion of money from pension sus­pects by EFCC officials. Mr. Mike Nzekwe had peti­tioned the Industrial Court on his removal and stated that “Mrs Uzoma Attang is one of the accused per­sons in the pension scam and in her petition to Mr. Larmode against Habibu Adam of EFCC, she clearly revealed that Mr. Habibu demanded and collected sixty-five million Naira (N65,000,000) from her so that the charges against her will be dropped. Mrs. At­tang also provided details on how Habibu Adamu collected and disbursed the money and how another pension scam suspect, Mr. Mike Okoro’s charges were dropped. The EFCC’s case against Mr. Oronsaye is a glaring manifestation of in­justice and an abuse of rule of law.

The President and the Solicitor-General (in the absence of a Minister of Justice) must intervene in this matter by taking away the pension case from EFCC and handing it over to another agency for diligent investigation and prosecution. This is the only way that justice will be served in this matter, not just for Mr. Oronsaye , but also for pensioners in Nigeria who have suffered so much in the face of in­ability of EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies to bring to book all those who have been in their custody for the past five years.

Oronsaye’s sins

Oronsaye’s sin is that he demonstrated uncommon courage to scatter the cabal that had held the pension office in the OHCSF for too long. He came in at a time when the corruption in the pension office was at a frightening height. Those who followed the public hearing on the corruption in the pension office af­ter his exit had the privi­lege of hearing the truth. All the key figures agreed Oronsaye was not party to any of the corrupt actions. Shuaibu, Chidi and even Maina all spoke. No wrong was found in Oronsaye and so the Senate commit­tee absolved him of any wrongdoing. All he sought to do was clear the mess of over a decade. Again, the Oronsaye Committee recommended that EFCC be merged with other simi­lar bodies and not an out­right scrapping. Oronsaye, chaired the Presidential Committee on FATF, which worked in conjunction with the National Assembly and other bodies to ensure Nigeria is de-listed from the list of non-cooperating jurisdictions in matters re­lating to money laundering and financing terrorism.

One cannot and should not attempt to praise Oron­saye. His records speak for themselves.