Between On-Shore Property and Off-Shore Castle

By

 Olusegun Adeniyi

Even when those in authority may not feel what we feel, these are troubling times for Nigeria and many people, especially of my generation, have had to agonize a lot in recent times. At every informal discussion, the question that agitates minds has been why things just refuse to change in our nation. Why is it that our leaders at every level refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past? After a recent of such discussion with Segun Awolowo, he sent me a very treasured letter which was written by his late grandfather, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, to reject contributing to the Political Bureau set up by the then Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, in 1986.
 

What makes Segun sad, and I now feel what he felt, is that the letter could have been written today. This was what Awo said in what could be considered a rather pessimistic but apt summation of events in Nigeria: "The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is therefore pertinent and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently will continue to pray that I may be proved wrong. But something within me tells me loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed.

"In other words, at the threshold of our 'new social order' we would see for ourselves that as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised.

"But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched unless God himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce makes us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better."

In the last couple of weeks, we have been treated to salacious stories of scandal in high places with the integrity of two Governors on the line over properties acquired through questionable means. But what makes the matter interesting is that it also, in a diabolical sense, raises the issue of on-shore and off-shore dichotomy. The dirty stories concerning Governor Abubakar Audu of Kogi State and his Ondo State counterpart, Chief Adebayo Adefarati also confirm what we have been made to believe that it is only public officials and their immediate family members that have cornered to themselves the much touted "democracy dividends".

It is also no longer secret that many of our Governors and Ministers, even those that were members of Free Readers Association of newspapers only yesterday, I mean those who were known to be very poor, now have castles in Paris, New York and London.

This is the season when every public office holder must have an apartment offshore, it is the latest craze in town. The level of corrupt practices is so high that nobody takes serious again the anti corruption slogan of this administration. Whether those in authority want to admit it or not, it has for long been business as usual, looting is now the name of the game.

Yet we should be worried not only because we endanger our democracy with the unrestrained diversion of public wealth into private accounts but also because no international creditor would take us serious since they are quite aware of the perfidy going on in the name of governance here.

Let us begin with the first story. Since we have all been living in Nigeria we know the way our authorities have been treating teachers the reason why we always say their rewards are in heaven. But it would appear one of them is already taking his own reward right here on earth. Pa Adefarati Adefarati was a retired School Principal before the Afenifere leaders awarded him the Ondo Govrnoship ticket. I use the word awarded because from what we gathered then it was Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo who actually won the primaries but she was a Minister under the late Sani Abacha and that decidedly counted against her when the chips were down.

Adefarati came to office with the slogan God's Own Project and many people, seeing him as an old man, thought he could be trusted. Three years down the road, most people from Ondo State that I meet today think otherwise, and they have stories to tell of the monumental looting going on their state that now gets jumbo funds from the Federal Government based on its off-shore oil deposits with practically little or nothing to show for it.

Today, two Commissioners in Ondo State have been forced to leave office, (Attorney General Bamidele Ogedengbe and his Finance colleague, Abbas Aidi) due to corrupt charges and they are facing prosecution while a third may follow. In all these, the name of the Governor is being touted as the man behind all the dirty deals.

The story began with the purchase of a N500 million property in Lagos through Duo Ventures owned by Adefarati's former Attorney General, Ogedengbe. While the Governor continues to parrot his cock-and-bull story that he never cared about the ownership of a company buying a property worth half a billion naira on behalf of his state, it turned out that it was actually bought for half the price claimed. And while investigation into Adefarati's "financial engineering" continues, it has been established that N351 million was receipted for with other dirty details that may yet come out.

In the latest edition of TELL, a further expose was done on the "off-shore activities" of the Governor who as it were, according to the magazine, has also joined the craze for acquiring property abroad but he was not as daring as Audu, he allegedly had to use a front.

According to the magazine, Adefarati used his brother-in-Law, Oluwole Aofolaju (his wife is nee Aofolaju), to purchase a house located on 19 Common wealth Way Abbey Wood, in London last year. What apparently exposed the deal is the on-going investigation of Duo Ventures account at Wema Bank, Maryland, Ikeja branch. That was how the police stumbled on the fact that at varying times, huge sums of money were moved in and out of the account last year. It was also from the account the sum of 108,108 Pounds sterling was moved to National Westminster Bank PLC, London N19 NA on February 23, 2001. The beneficiary was Oluwole Aofolaju whose account number is 06818587. On June 11, 2001, another 15,453.61 pounds was transferred to the same account.

While the house palaver is under investigation, Adefarati has to explain how come his Commissioners are, according to his Finance Commissioner, Segun Ojo "building houses all over the place". There seems to be so much prosperity in Ondo that almost all the top public office holders and their aides, including Ojo's PA, now own property. Where are they getting the money from? And this brings us to the question of what has been happening to the jumbo allocation available to the state from the federation account. Ondo, I know, collected N10.2 billion in 2000 and N17.3 billion last year. Where has the money gone?

I am aware that Adefarati has implacable foes in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), people like Power and Steel Minister, Dr. Segun Agagu, whom he defeated in the last elections and these people would do anything to get him out. But even at that, his political enemies cannot be held accountable for the mess he has found himself because from reports coming from Ondo, the old man seems to be on a roll and that is why Justice Mustapha Akanbi is after him.

Our dandy Prince Abubakar Audu of Kogi, the "International Banker" who has properties all over the world is another man who should be made to answer a few questions about where he has been making his money to the extent that even his $1.7 million house in the United States is of far lesser value than the houses he has in Nigeria if we should believe him.

This was Audu talking when the story of his American castle first broke: "It is just that they want to make me to look ridiculous. That is why they refer to my house abroad, why not my houses in Nigeria which are far better than the ones outside. I have been up there in the corporate world. I think the lowest position I have ever occupied is the governorship"

But after weeks of bravado on the part of Audu, concerning the status of the property situated at 12301, Glen Road, Potomac, Maryland, United States, Sunday Times has published incontrovertible evidence to show the Governor bought the $1.7 million property on March 15, last year. This runs counter to Audu's claim that he acquired the property before he became Governor in May, 29, 1999 and that he declared it in his asset declaration form with the Code of Conduct Bureau. Rather than address the damaging issue, the Governor has secured (or is it procured?) the services of Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu not only to blame imaginary detractors but to tell the world how he owns property all over the world before he (Audu) became Governor as if that answers the question of whether or not he bought the American property last year.

Facts obtained by Sunday Times from the record of the Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. (MRIS) in Washington DC. reveal that the assignment of the mansion was transferred to Audu two years after he became Governor. The said property was bought from Par Development L.C. on March 15, 2001. Incidentally, Par Development had bought it from Philips A. and M.A. Topor on August 12, 1999 for $310,000.

While the Governor has not denied owing the property, the contentious issues have been when he acquired it and arising therefrom, how he obtained the money. Answer to the first automatically settles the second issue. If he bought it while in office, the funds could only have come from the public money put in his trust as a Governor who insists he declared the property in his asset form at the Code of Conduct Bureau.

While it is possible for public record to be easily altered in Nigeria, a situation which any smart public official could play upon at the Code of Conduct Bureau, the society where Audu purchased his property is an open one which makes access to information very easy hence the present controversy. That is where the Governor's ordeal started from.

There was no way he could have declared in his asset declaration form, the property that as at then belonged to someone else, especially when he only assumed office in May 1999, except of course, it was an anticipatory declaration for what he planned to do in office.

The documents reveal that Par Development reconstructed the luxury building which has five sections in August 1999 prior to selling it to Audu in March last year. With a total living area of 6,900 square metres and a total basement area of 3620 and built-in-garage of 310 square feet, it is described as a luxury house by grading.

The castle, probably redesigned to Audu's taste, also has six full baths, a combined heat, forced air and water air conditioning system with two fire places and 1220 square metre club room.

Although Audu purchased the property for $1,719,954, the year 2000 tax assessment had put the value of the property at $1,178,736 with land going for $216,600 while improvement was put at $994,810. It was on this basis that the Governor last year paid a total tax of $13,196 on the property. $9,725 of this sum went as state/county tax while $3300 was special tax assessment with $170 going for refuse. Now that the Governor has confirmed that the house belongs to him, we have to raise serious moral and criminal questions which touch on the foundation of the democracy we are still trying to build.

Notwithstanding all the rhetoric's of the last three years, it would appear there is no real commitment to the anti-corruption crusade for which the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Offenses Commission was set up. That is why all that the Commission has been able to do is to entertain Nigerians with the trial of some little known civil servants who allegedly fiddled with sums not enough for the weekend entertainment of our political office holders.

The issues remain: Did Audu really declare the property in his assets declaration form? If he did, that may confirm what the Anti-Graft Commission Chairman, Justice Mustapha Akanbi said recently that some public office holders had made declaration of assets they did not have before coming to office in anticipation of the looting they were going to perpetrate. Could this be what Audu did, assuming he actually declared the property as he said?

That we are talking about Adefarati and Audu does not in any way mean they are alone in this matter, the problem with them really is that they may have broken the eleventh commandment. People like them are in the majority and that is why many Nigerians are fast losing faith in the present experiment. And what shocks me is the rate at which many young upwardly mobile people are planning to move with their families abroad, they don't believe anything will, or can, change in our country. Who will restore our faith in Nigeria? Who will? Just who will?

April 2002