He has not yet been convicted by a court of law so it is wrong to call Mr. Andrew Laah Yakubu a thief. Inevitably however, the discovery of a huge hidden treasure in a ghetto, which he admitted to owning, has become the new signpost of everything that is wrong with the Nigerian elite. There have been many revelations of sordid financial dealings by former leaders since 2015 but the recent discovery of millions of US dollars hidden by Andrew Yakubu has generated the most national shock and awe since the Dasukigate scandal.
It all began earlier this month when EFCC announced that “A special operation conducted by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on 3rd February, 2017 on a building belonging to a former Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Andrew Yakubu in Kaduna yielded the recovery of a staggering sum of $9,772,800 (Nine Million, Seven Hundred and Seven Two Thousand, Eight Hundred United States Dollars) and another sum of £74,000 (Seventy Four Thousand Pound Sterling) cash. The huge cash was hidden in a fire proof safe. The surprise raid of the facility was sequel to an intelligence which the commission received about suspected proceeds of crime believed to be hidden in the slums of Sabon Tasha area of Kaduna. On arrival at the facility, the caretaker of the house, one Bitrus Yakubu, a younger brother to Andrew Yakubu, disclosed that both the house and the safe where the money was found belong to his brother, Andrew Yakubu.”
EFCC also said Andrew Yakubu reported to its Kano Zonal office and made a statement “wherein he admitted ownership of the recovered money, claiming it was gift from unnamed persons. He is currently assisting the investigation.” He is yet to be released on bail though many powerful persons are said to be lining up to bail him. He is also yet to be charged to court but a Federal High Court sitting in Kano has ordered that the confiscated monies be forfeited to the Federal Government.
Prior to this case, Nigerians had the belief that most public sector looting was done by holders of political offices, top party officials as well as top military brass and their civilian officials who together diverted trillions of naira meant for weapons purchases. The oil industry had long been known to be a cesspool of corruption but the level of corrupt involvement by oil industry technocrats as now revealed by the Yakubu finding surpassed all Nigerians’ suspicions.
Another dimension to this saga was that so much money was kept outside the banking system. Corrupt Nigerian leaders have been hiding monies under their beds for a long time but to find an amount equivalent to more than three billion naira hidden in a home was something else. The location of the find caused yet another shock. Sabon Tasha area of Kaduna city is a sprawling slum that has been hard hit by a reversal of this country’s economic fortunes. It once benefitted from the coming of the Kaduna refinery to the vicinity. The refinery was once the backbone of Sabon Tasha’s economy but not anymore, since it has been epileptic at best and comatose at worst for more than two decades now.
Andrew Yakubu chose this location to hide this loot, in a building so rusty that no one suspects that it houses a few thousand naira. Nigerians’ suspicions were that the elite hide monies in places such as Maitama, Asokoro, Victoria Island and Ikoyi but Yakubu cleverly capitalised on that psychology and hid the money where it was least expected. Following the discovery, newspapers reported neighbours as raining curses on Yakubu and describing his act as “sheer wickedness” when too many people in the area cannot afford three meals a day.
The former GMD of NNPC told EFCC that the money was a gift. That statement turned upside down the thousand-year African notion of a gift. The much more appropriate name for it, no matter what the source turns out to be, is bribery, kick back, ten percent, front loading or padding. While we congratulate EFCC and its agents for this spectacular find, we urge it not to relent because Sabon Tasha could be only one of Yakubu’s underground treasuries.
EFCC’s latest discovery has been hailed by many as a sign of the success of government’s new whistleblower policy. The promise of hefty rewards for anyone who squeals on men such as Yakubu is said to be paying dividends. Since people who stash away such monies go to great lengths to conceal them, potential whistleblowers are usually former collaborators who are either pricked by conscience or lured by the reward. Luckily, the mean character of the looters often helps.
Yakubu and all those generous persons who gave him the “gifts” should be in the dock as soon as possible, lest they escape prosecution and conviction and return at a later date to prominent positions and perpetrate more financial mayhem. In this pursuit we must ignore selfish groups such as the previously unheard of ‘Southern Kaduna Coalition of Professionals’, SKOP. This shameless group issued a statement at the weekend in which it sought to becloud the Yakubu issue with base sentiments and alleged that he is a victim of ethnic and religious vendetta. Such posturing must be firmly rejected. Anyone who commits such atrocity against the Nigerian people must be brought to book no matter his tribe, region or religion.
