PREMIUM TIMES writes Tinubu, EFCC, CCB over Customs officers’ 12bn bribery scandal

Nigeria’s main investigative newspaper, PREMIUM TIMES, has written to President Bola Tinubu, asking him to order the prosecution of some officers of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) indicted for accepting bribes to the tune of N12 billion whereas sabotaging authorities insurance policies.

Within the letter dated 12 March, PREMIUM TIMES informed Mr Tinubu that seven prime officers of the NCS have been indicted in an EFCC investigation unearthing how some Customs officers have obtained billions of naira from smugglers. But, the EFCC has didn’t kickstart their prosecution months after they have been detained and elements of the proceeds of bribes recovered.

“This will likely look like an encouragement to the suspects and others with the chance and facility to proceed taking bribes from smugglers,” elements of the letter signed by the newspaper’s Deputy Managing Editor, Adeyemi Adesomoju, learn.

This newspaper requested Mr Tinubu to tug the burden of his workplace to make sure acceptable, decisive actions are taken on the case. “We’re requesting that you just order the NCS to instantly take acceptable disciplinary actions towards these officers and the EFCC to start their prosecution with out additional delay,” the letter added.

Now we have additionally written to the EFCC, NCS and the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), asking them to start the prosecution of the indicted individuals.

Nevertheless, none of them has responded to our letters, the identical manner all of them ignored our enquiries once we printed the preliminary report.

Customs Officers indicted in N12 billion corruption scandal

In February, PREMIUM TIMES completely reported how seven NCS officers have been indicted in an investigation by the anti-graft company, EFCC into the proceeds of bribes from smugglers.

The story revealed that the indicted NCS officers have been arrested and detained between November and January. The EFCC investigation traced N12 billion suspected to be proceeds of bribes from smugglers to the seven officers. They’ve promptly refunded a complete of N937 million earlier than they have been launched, with the promise of refunding extra.

Nevertheless, the EFCC has didn’t impact their prosecution and the NCS has refused to punish them because it allowed them again to their responsibility posts.

Indicted Customs Officers

The officers indicted within the EFCC investigation, as reported by this newspaper embrace the NCS’ Space Controller Zone B Kaduna, Ibrahim Jalo; his private assistant, Umar Tafarki; and the Comptroller Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone C, Port Harcourt, Kayode Kolade.

Different indicted officers are the Comptroller of Enforcement, Kaduna Zone, Nurudeen Musa; the officer answerable for Operation FOU Zone B, Kaduna, Hamisu Ibrahim; the officer answerable for patrol on the Agangaro/Jibia Highway, Mohammed Rabiu and Madugu Saleh.

“Customs insiders and different sources acquainted with the matter informed this newspaper that the officers have been discovered to personal properties and companies manner above what their earnings as customs officers might cater for,” elements of the preliminary story reads.

PREMIUM TIMES calls on EFCC, CCB, Customs for motion

This newspaper has additionally written to the chairperson of the EFCC, Olanipekun Olukoyede, whose males arrested these NCS officers however appeared reluctant to kickstart their prosecution.

Within the 12 March letter to Mr Olukoyede, PREMIUM TIMES requested that the EFCC instantly cost the suspects to court docket with all offences referring to the established case of significant bribery.

“It will ship a powerful sign to, not simply NCS officers, however to everybody in each the non-public and public sectors, that the Nigerian authorities, by means of your company, takes bribery and different problems with financial sabotage critically. We imagine that this step is critical, particularly at a time the federal government is battling to avoid wasting the economic system,” the letter reads.

We additionally wrote to the chairperson of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Abdullahi Bello, asking the CCB to start impartial investigations into the seemingly breaches of the code of conduct for public officers.

The CCB has the mandate to ascertain and preserve a excessive normal of public morality within the conduct of presidency enterprise and to make sure that the actions and behavior of public officers conform to the best requirements of public accountability.

“Your company, with its unique powers to research breaches of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers, stipulated within the Nigerian structure, occupies a novel place within the combat towards public corruption,” elements of the letter learn.

“We’re, subsequently, urging you to tug the burden of your workplace by activating these huge constitutional powers and obligations to make sure grave circumstances of corruption with dire financial implications will not be swept underneath the carpet.”

In one other letter, we requested the Comptroller-Basic of the NCS, Bashir Adeniyi, why the service underneath his management has didn’t take any disciplinary motion towards the indicted officers however has reasonably allowed them to stay of their posts.

“This will likely look like an encouragement to the suspects and others with the chance and facility to proceed taking bribes from smugglers,” the letter, submitted on 13 March and signed by Mr Adesomoju, reads.

“Subsequently, we’re requesting that you just instantly take acceptable disciplinary actions towards these officers and hasten up their prosecution by the EFCC to ship a powerful sign to your whole workforce that the NCS, in your watch, would now not condone acts of bribery or another type of financial sabotage.”

Continued Silence

Greater than six weeks after we wrote to the Nigerian authorities asking them to prosecute the indicted officers, none of them has replied to us. Now we have additionally not been knowledgeable of the prosecution of any of those indicted officers.

That is much like the silence from the authorities that adopted our report in February. We had reached out to each the EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, and the NCS spokesperson, Aliyu Maiwada.

Whereas Mr Oyewale promised to get again to our reporter on the time, he by no means did. Mr Maiwada, in the meantime, didn’t reply to our reporter’s name and detailed messages searching for response.

Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Occasions in partnership with Report for the World, which matches native newsrooms with gifted rising journalists to report on under-covered points across the globe