As hearings on the petitions before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal over the controversial February 25 election get underway, revelations have emerged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) cannot produce the results of more than 9000 polling units where results were manipulated.
A well-placed source in INEC disclosed that the commission is finding it difficult to reconcile the figures it announced during the presidential election because the original results are no longer available.
The source noted that while INEC is in possession of the altered results, it cannot produce the original ones signed by the presiding officers at the polling units where results were manipulated.
The unfolding crisis, it was learnt, followed the controversial shutdown of the INEC server during the presidential election, which caused difficulty for the commission’s staff to upload results to the BiModal Accreditation Voter System (BVAS) which was subsequently formatted for the governorship election which held three weeks later.
The challenge INEC faces as it heads to Election Petition Tribunal is how to defend the results it announced during the election without showing evidence from the results given to them by the presiding officer, the source added.
During collation of the results, opposition parties, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), rejected the figures announced by INEC, citing among other things, the manipulation of results in several states in favour of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) the presidential candidate Bola Tinubu.
The parties demanded a review of the collation process to address the anomalies, among which was the failure to upload photos of polling station results to a central portal, IReV, created for the purpose.
Results were supposed to be electronically transmitted from each of the more than 176,000 polling stations to the commission’s collation system and also uploaded to its website.
While INEC apologised for the technical glitches” in uploading results on the IREV portal as planned, its chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu, carried on with the process and declared Tinubu winner.
According to Yakubu, Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes, while the PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar came second with a total of 6,984,520 votes.
Labour Party candidate Peter Obi came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
The opposition parties have since rejected the outcome of the election and filed petitions at the Election Tribunal citing irregularities and INEC’s failure to abide by provisions of the law. The electoral commission and the APC have also filed counterclaims insisting the election was credible.
However, a senior INEC official who craves anonymity has revealed that, “Presidential Election results of more than nine thousand polling units across Nigeria have been missing.
“This is because the original results from the Presiding officer from which the manipulations were done, they do not have it anymore to reconcile how they arrived at the figures that were announced.
“The original results which they collected from the Presiding officer from which they did the manipulation is what they are looking for. They need that to show the results they announced,” the senior INEC source added.
For instance, in the manipulated results sheet where they have 187,000, they need the original to know if the actual votes were 187, 87 or 18. This is the biggest headache now because the numbers are not adding up,” the source said.
The source noted that without the original results, the commission would not be able to figure out how they arrived at the numbers that were declared.
The INEC insider added that the situation is responsible for INEC’s inability to upload 100% of the presidential election results into their system, adding that the last time they uploaded results was March 25.
As of the time of filing this report, INEC had uploaded 94.68 percent of results from the Presidential election on its IREV portal.
The source added, “Problems started after the manipulation of the original results and the shutdown of the INEC server, INEC staffers were said to be using personal phone datas and hotspots to attempt to send the results to the BVAS. The process failed them, and most could not snap or export results before formatting them.
“The results were said to have been snapped from the BVAS machine without exportation to INEC servers after Glo-Nigeria connived with INEC to shut down the server midway into the Presidential elections.
“The challenge INEC is having now is how they intend to go to the tribunal and show how they arrived at the results that were announced without showing evidence from the results given to them by the Presiding officer,” the source noted.
Recall that elections were not held in 240 polling units because there were no registered voters there. As such, the total number of polling units in the country is now 176,606 as against 176,846.
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the postponement of the 2023 Population and Housing Census, earlier scheduled for May 3-7 to a date to be determined by the incoming administration.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said in a statement on Saturday that Buhari approved after meeting with some Federal Executive Council members and the National Population Commission Chairman and his team at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Friday, April 28.
“In arriving at the decision to postpone the Census, the meeting reiterated the critical need for the conduct of a Population and Housing Census, 17 years after the last Census, to collect up-to-date data that will drive the developmental goals of the country and improve the living standard of the Nigerian people,” Mohammed stated.
“The President noted that with the completion of the Enumeration Area Demarcation of the country, the conduct of first and second pretests, the recruitment and training of ad-hoc workers, procurement of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and ICT infrastructures, appreciable progress has been made in the implementation of the 2023 Population and Housing Census.”
Mohammed noted that the president commended the methodology being put in place by the Commission to conduct an accurate and reliable census, especially the massive deployment of technology capable of delivering a world-class census and laying a sustainable basis for future censuses.
The minister added that Buhari has further directed the Commission to continue preparing for the 2023 Population and Housing Census to sustain the gains already recorded and provide the basis for the incoming administration to consolidate these achievements.
The meeting was attended by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed; the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed; the Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha.
The Presidential candidate of the Labour party, Peter Gregory Obi whose mandate APC allegedly stole has giving his opinion about the recently recently postponed National Population and Housing Census in Nigeria.
He wrote below :
“FGN’s decision to postpone the 2023 Population and Housing Census, scheduled for 3-7 May 2023, to a date to be determined by the incoming Administration is a propitious and welcome development. National Census is a critical development and nation-building tool.
Meanwhile,Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue has lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for directing that the national population census be postponed.
This is contained in a statement by his media aide, Terver Akase, on Saturday in Makurdi.
He said that with the postponement of the census now approved by Mr Buhari, the federal government should ensure that Nigerians whose communities had been taken over by bandits and armed herders regained their lands and returned home.
He said the lives and well-being of the people must be placed above other factors for the nation to realise its aspiration for greater growth and development.
Mr Ortom had, on April 13, called on the federal government to postpone the planned census until adequate security was guaranteed in the country.
The governor specifically stated that conducting the census will amount to injustice and deprivation of millions of Nigerians who have been displaced from their ancestral homes and are living in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in the state and other parts of the country.
“I want to say that the FG should suspend the issue of the census because it looks like the proposed census is coming with an agenda.
“So, until they are able to restore security and all our IDPs go back to their ancestral lands to give all of them opportunities to be counted in their homes of birth,” he had said.
On Friday, Mr Buhari announced the postponement at a meeting with some members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the chairman of the National Population Commission with his team at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
He said the incoming administration would now conduct the exercise even as preparation would still be ongoing to achieve its success.
Nigerians are currently stranded on the journey from Khartoum to Cairo after the drivers of the buses paid to evacuate them complained that their fuel finished and that Federal Government has not remunerated them for the service.
As of the time of filing this report at 2:20 pm, our correspondent gathered that none of the Embassy officials are on the ground to explain to stranded Nigerians, especially the students why the drivers have stopped the buses over their claim.
The PUNCH reports that the evacuation of 2,400 students and other Nigerians trapped by the ongoing conflict in Sudan took off on a slow start on Wednesday as only 15 out of the 40 buses required for the exercise were provided.
Although the Federal Government hired 40 buses for the repatriation of the citizens from Khartoum and other cities to Egypt, only 10 buses were available as of Wednesday morning, while additional five buses were provided later in the day (Wednesday).
Speaking with our correspondent on Thursday, some students fear that the three-day ceasefire declared by the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Force expires Thursday (today) and they are yet to make buses available.
The Chairman of the Nigerian Community (Elders Forum) in Sudan, Dr Hashim Na’Allah, stated “People are hungry and there is no concrete information from either the Embassy or the Committee in charge of the buses.
People are sitting outside under high temperatures. The temperature is very high that people are thirsty. Nowhere to find water to drink or buy food to eat.
“In the next two to three days, if nothing is done to address this situation, Nigerian students might start dying.”
A female student who spoke on anonymity noted, “We are 150 females mostly from Jigawa and we are stranded. The Embassy said they are not sending buses to us.
“The bus owners have been complaining that they do not have fuel but we are not even seeing the buses. They are not ready to release any of the buses because people are running away from the country.
Today is the last day of the ceasefire. We woke up to gunshots this morning. If we do not leave here today, I do not know what becomes of us.”
In a video sighted by our correspondent, a student was seen crying and saying”Because your family, children, and nephews are on the bus, that is why we are left behind. We are afraid. We do not have water, hunger, and food. These soldiers, their barracks are very close to us here, (International University of Africa). There have been gunshots since last night. No one is here for us.”
The President of the Jigawa State Students Association in Sudan, Umar Abubakar said he has been out since 5 am waiting for a bus to evacuate them.
Abubakar noted, “We are disappointed in everything. We are outside under the sun since 5 am waiting for the buses, not even one official from the embassy is around. Those people are just playing us along.”
He added that those who were evacuated from Khartoum to Egypt have been stranded since yesterday (Wednesday) at a border between Sudan and Egypt.
Abubakar said, “Even those that left for Egypt yesterday are now stranded on their way because the drivers said they have not been paid and that they are not moving an inch until they are paid, or else they will drop the students there and return.”
Confirming this, a student of Noble College in Sudan, Idris Wakama, said “The drivers dropped our students in the middle of the desert. We do not know what is happening. They collected $100 from some of our students on the buses. The Federal Government needs to address the situation quickly.”
In a video obtained by our correspondent, students were stranded long frustrated in a quiet and desert environment.
A female was seen yelling, “Before we started this journey, we fought and now that we have the privilege of moving, the drivers dropped us in the middle of this desert. We have been stuck here for five hours.
“We do not have money nor water. We are in an unknown environment and it is very dangerous.”
The National Economic Council, on Thursday, in Abuja, said it has agreed that petrol subsidy should “not be removed” as earlier planned for June 2023.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this to State House correspondents shortly after the valedictory Council meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Ahmed said the Council agreed on the need for continued discussions on the issue adding that the FG, together with states and representatives of the incoming administration, require more preparatory work.
She said, “Council agreed that the timing of the removal of fuel subsidy should not be now. But that we should continue with all of the preparatory works that need to be done and that this preparatory has to be done in consultation with the states and other key stakeholders including representatives of the incoming administration.
“Council agreed that the fuel subsidy must be removed earlier rather than later because it is not sustainable. We cannot afford it anymore. But we have to do it in such a way that the impact of the subsidy is as much as possible, mitigated on the lives of ordinary Nigerians.
So, this will require looking at alternatives to the fuel subsidy that needs to be planned for and subsequently put in place. But also what needs to be done to support the people that will be most affected as a result of the removal.”
Ahmed added that the FG will be working together with representatives of the states between now and June 2023.
We have a plan that we will start working on, putting the building blocks towards the eventual removal of the first subsidy.
“And if I may remind this forum that the budget for 2023 has a provision for fuel subsidy only up to June 2023 and also the Petroleum Industry Act has a provision that requires that all petroleum products must be deregulated 18 months after the effective date of the PMS removal and that that period is also up to June 2020,” the minister explained.
The Nzuko Ndi Igbo Di Na Ala Lagos has written a letter to the market chairman expressing their grievances concerning the treatment the Igbos received in Lagos during the election and after election in Lagos State.
The group complained about the killings of the Igbo and burning down of the market where their business is been destroy in Lagos.
The group states that none of the Igbo will participate in the census in Lagos but all will return to the various state during the census period.
The group states that due to the post election violence, all businesses owned by the Igbo people will be shut down for two weeks starting from May 3rd 2023
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) on Wednesday in Abuja alerted Nigerians about a killer cough syrup, NATURCOLD.
Its director-general, Mojisola Adeyeye, stated that the cough syrup already caused the death of six children in Cameroon.
Ms Adeyeye stated that the cough syrup was not in NAFDAC’s database and advised importers, distributors, retailers, and consumers to exercise caution and vigilance within the supply chain.
She called on importers, distributors, retailers, and consumers to avoid importing, distributing, selling, and consuming the substandard syrup.
All medical products must be obtained from authorised/licensed suppliers. The products’ authenticity and physical condition should be carefully checked.
NAFDAC implores members of the public to desist from buying medicinal products from unauthorised sources such as roadside vendors and street hawkers,’’ she stated.
Ms Adeyeye added that fake drugs were mostly smuggled into the country from neighbouring countries and distributed through inappropriate channels.
She urged anyone possessing NATURCOLD to discontinue its sale or use and submit stock to the nearest NAFDAC office.
If you know anyone who has used this product or suffered any adverse reaction after use, such person is advised to seek immediate medical advice from a qualified healthcare professional,’’ she stressed.
Ms Adeyeye also advised healthcare professionals and consumers to report any suspicion of the sale and use of substandard and falsified medicines to the nearest NAFDAC office.
She explained that Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health already issued an alert regarding the suspected substandard cough syrup.
The NAFDAC boss added that the death of the six victims of the cough syrup was recorded at a health facility in the district of Fundong, North-West region of Cameroon.
She quoted the delegate for public health in the region as saying that children who took the syrup showed a decrease in kidney function.
Presidential candidate of the Labour Party Peter Obi has said he hasn’t rested since the election because ‘no serious leader would go on vacation with the way things are going on in Nigeria’.
Obi, while felicitating with the Muslim community in Awka, Anambra State on Monday, said his visit had nothing to do with politics.
The former governor, who was also at the Onitsha mosque on Sunday, said paying such visits should not only be borne out of political ambitions.
He said: “People who want to rest can go and rest. For me, I’m not resting. No serious leader will go and rest in Nigeria with the way things are today. We will continue to visit as many people as we can, and also support them in the best way we can.”
While donating foodstuff to the community, Obi promised to help them rebuild the mosque which was undergoing a facelift.
thank you for inviting me to celebrate with you. You wanted to come to my house instead, but I said it will be better for me to come and now that I have come, I have also seen that the mosque is undergoing reconstruction. I want to pledge here and now that I shall contribute to the work you have at hand, to ensure that you have a befitting place of worship.
“I am a Christian and you are Muslims, but we are all Nigerians, and Nigeria is one. It is only politics that divides us. But I have never seen any road being traveled by only Muslims. I have also not seen any market where Christians buy bread cheaper than Muslims. If you know such market, please tell me, let me go and buy.”
Leader of the Muslim community in Awka, Alhaji Musa Bello, who spoke on behalf of the community said Obi remains the only individual who has consistently visited them.
I was among the Muslims you sponsored to Saudi Arabia during your tenure. You did not know me before you did it. You are a lover of all men, and you have been very beneficial to mankind,” he said.
RnB singer, Robert Sylvester Kelly, popularly known as R. Kelly, has been moved to a correctional centre located in North Carolina, the United States of America, where he is expected to serve his 30-year prison sentence in connection with multiple sexual offences.
He was moved to the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Caroline Wednesday last week from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons announced.
R. Kelly, in February 2023, was sentenced to one additional year in prison for his Chicago conviction of federal child pornography and child enticement charges.
This is in addition to the 30 years he’s already serving for a separate conviction out of New York.
In September, a federal jury in Chicago had convicted the singer of six-count charges of sexual abuse against three women.
The women had testified under the pseudonyms names Jane, Pauline, and Nia on video.
He was also acquitted by the jury of enticement charges involving two other accusers – Tracy and Brittany.
The singer was also acquitted of seven other charges, including obstruction of justice, accusing him and two associates of rigging his 2008 child pornography trial in Cook County.
I could not contain my laughter when I read about the social media controversy over Festus Keyamo’s house in America. For several reasons, it was a relief to me to find out that Keyamo is now a property owner in America, which makes him amenable to the jurisdiction of the United States’ courts.
Time line is important to the understanding of how Keyamo made the money he used in purchasing a house in America. The story is full of ironies. In his feeble defense to the allegations of corruption as to how he was able to purchase a house overseas while serving as a minister, Keyamo was reported to have said as follows:
“In 2021, I again wrote to the relevant agencies (by letters dated January 22, 2021), informing them of the movement of those funds out of the country to purchase a property as a better investment decision, instead of the funds lying idly in the account whilst I am in public office,”
He was further reported to have said that the building was about the cheapest of his several properties. He claimed that his flourishing and manned law chambers and his real estate investments are still far more financially profitable than serving Nigeria. He said also that “serving our country is a labor of love.”
I found those claims from Keyamo to be untrue, deceptive and totally misleading. If in 2021, Keyamo write his last of a series of correspondence seeking to transfer money that had been lying idle in his account, it is logical to believe he earned the money in 2019 and 2020. He wouldn’t really worry that the money was lying idle if he just earned it. The interval between his first correspondence and the final one in 2021 may have been more than one year. Hence, my assumption that it was in 2019 that Keyamo came upon the money he needed to offload or launder through purchase of a property in the United States in 2021.
Before I go further, let me state a logical assumption. If the money Keyamo used to purchase the property in the United States was proceed of unlawful transaction, then his purchase of property in America can properly be classified as money laundry. I shall now identify the particular transaction in 2019 from which Keyamo got 230,000 USD.
I was in remanded in Kuje prison in February of 2019 in one of those cases the police filed to keep me from starting the End-SARS protest head of when it finally occurred. I was placed in a special cell along with an inmate called GO. The called him that because he was the leader of the Christian inmates and in charge of the prison chapel. He was placed in a special cell as the do high profile inmates such as politicians and rich people. Because the prison officials treated me like an important inmate, I was placed in the same special cell with this GO. Our cell was next to the cell of Governor Joshua Dariye, another high profile inmate.
PLEASE NOTE: I was only remanded in prison awaiting trial. I have never been convicted of any offense in my entire life anywhere in the world, including Nigeria where every effort has been made to convict me. But I have been charged more than ten times by Nigerian authorities. So far, I have won all the cases. And in each case, I was charged because I criticized law enforcement. It is important to make that clarification.
One night, around 19th of February, 2019, a new inmate was brought to the cell I occupied with the GEO. The inmate was a man from Pakistan. His name was Muhammad Khalid Khan.
Of course, bringing him to our cell meant that he was viewed as a high profile inmate or someone with money to pay the officials. As Khan entered the cell and the after the warders left and locked us inside, I and GO introduced ourselves to him and began to interview him. It is a standard practice that when you enter a cell, the inmates in that cell would interview. You and give you the rules of that particular cell and the rules of the custody as well as the rules of the prison. The depth of questioning during the interview depends on the comparative strength and personality of the resident inmates and incoming inmates. I wasn’t interviewed when I entered the cell. My fight with the police was already well known and the inmates and warders knew of me before I got to the prison.
In the case of Khan, he was told I was a lawyer and he expected I would grill him. The moment I saw him, I knew this was a tough guy in the criminal world of which most Nigerians could not imagine. He was quiet and unassuming. Yet, from experience, I knew this was a big fish. I wasn’t really authorized to interview him. But did so out of curiosity. A Pakistani in Nigerian prison is not a frequent occurrence. My initial impression was involved in terrorism financing. So, I grilled Khan in the presence of GO. He told me he was arrested at the airport upon landing in Nigeria. He wasn’t sure the particular law enforcement agency that arrested him. I knew I could figure it out if he could tell me the offense he was charged with. I knew he must have been charged with an offense because he wouldn’t be remanded in prison without a remand warrant issued by a court. Also, the name of the court (Federal High Court) gave me the idea that this was a drug related offense or terrorism. He also indicated to me that they were trying to extradite him to America. That gave me the impression that he must be wanted by America either for drug-related offenses or terrorism-related financing. But Khan did not really know much about details of the processes playing around him.
I tried to know why he was in Nigeria. But he was evasive. I tried to know his exact contacts with America. He told me he had never been to America. I had to draw certain conclusions from that. The only way America would want to extradite a foreigner who has not been to America is if his actions affected victims in America in a serious way.
Normally in extradition case, the offense is actually packaged by the foreign government. All there is for Nigeria are some straightforward diplomatic and administrative protocols whereby the Nigerian Ministry of Justice takes the suspect to the Federal court and presents the documentation that was formulated by the American Department of Justice. The suspect may not know the details of the offenses., except what he could read from the document served on his shortly before he appears before a court. Even the Nigerian government will not know the details of the offenses. All they will see in Nigeria is that the United States Government wants this individual extradited based on vaguely described offenses. In a standard criminal case in Nigeria, the prosecutor would draft the charges and file them along with proof of evidence and serve same on the suspect. So, in a standard criminal trial, the defendant must know the details of the offences he was charged with. But Khan arrived in Kuje without knowing the details of the offences against him. From experience, I knew that he was facing extradition.
Immediately Khan realized that I was a lawyer both in Nigeria and the United States and that I had deep knowledge of extradition proceedings, he was so happy. He began to seek my help immediately. He wanted me to guide him. I told him flatly that he was facing an uphill task. This was because he was not a citizen of Nigeria. All those constitutional defenses a Nigerian citizen could normally invoke to prevent extradition would not be available for a non-Nigerian citizen who finds himself fighting extradition in Nigerian courts. Khan pressured me to link up with lawyers outside the prison to challenge his extradition. I told him there was really no hope for him in that respect. I advised him that his best option was to pursue diplomatic option since I could see that he was highly connected to the Government of Pakistan. That was actually true because right from the moment he got into the cell, he was able to communicate directly with the Pakistani Ambassador and even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Pakistan.
It was much later that I realized that Khan controlled an international drug trafficking and money laundering network responsible for trafficking narcotics to the US, Australia, Africa and Europe. His money-laundering network was widespread throughout the US, Australia, Canada, Africa, Europe and Asia. And American government wanted him badly.
Khan was really impressed with my knowledge of things concerning his type of case. He was impressed when he realized I was able to decipher information he did not want to divulge to me. For instance, I knew he was going to be taken to the Southern District New York. I also could tell that he would be convicted if taken there. I just explained to him the conviction rate of the US District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. I also explained to him that when the DOJ and the State Department go that far to get a suspect, it is because they believe he is a high valued suspect and they must have excellent evidence against him.
Due to the fact that Khan trusted my judgment and analysis, he kept pressing me to find a lawyer for him in Nigeria would take his case. Even though I managed to convince him that on points of law and available precedent, he would not win in court on the merit, he wanted me to find a way to bribe the court. He made it clear to me that he would pay up to 5 million dollars in bribe if I could arrange for people that would set him free in exchange for that money. I was reluctant to even consider his request. While I was able to discuss the law with him, I was totally clueless when it came to arranging officials that would be able to take money from him and set him free.
Khan promised to give me 100,000USD upfront if I could help him with that, and 200,000USD when he would get back to Pakistan. I didn’t want to consider this. Besides, it could be dangerous messing with a man like Khan with an international network of bad guys. So, I politely declined. However, GO thought otherwise. He thought that the money Khan was offering for help was too much to ignore. When I went to court the following day, GO was alone with Khan. GO convinced Khan that he would fine him a lawyer, well connected with the government that would help him. The lawyer GO found for Khan was Festus Keyamo. When I came back from court, I noticed that Khan was avoiding me. He and GO did not want to tell me that they had reached out to Keyamo and that Keyamo had agreed to help Khan.
The next day, Keyamo visited the prison in his Landcruiser. I knew that Keyamo came to Kuje, but I did not immediately realize who he came to see. All I knew was that Khan was taken out to meet a visitor and that GO went with him. It was later that night that I realized that Keyamo had promised Khan that he would use his connections in the Buhari Government to stop his extradition. I was told that Keyamo charged Khan 280,0000 USD for that. Khan was willing to pay anything. I tried to convince Khan that Keyamo was only trying to dupe him. I felt that with the level of interest the United States Government had in Khan, even the President of Nigeria would not be able to stop the extradition. So, I knew that Keyamo was lying to Khan. He just wanted to take the man’s money. Unfortunately, as I tried to stop Khan from trusting Keyamo, Khan began to see me as someone opposed to his only solution. Also, GO felt that I was about to spoil the opportunity of him getting money. I learnt that GO was to get 50,000USD for his role in arranging for Keyamo. I later heard that Keyamo gave 50,000USD to a relative of GO out of the 280,000USD Khan paid him.
NOTE: The prison environment is an unusual place where things are whispered in hushes. Verification of information cannot be 100%. My reader must take that into consideration in drawing his conclusions.
I felt mad when I heard that Khan had actually paid Keyamo. I became more and more critical of the entire deal. GO and Khan conspired with the officer-in-charge of the prison to place me in solitary confinement for two weeks where I would not have contact with Khan or any other inmate. They believe I might ruin the whole deal. Of course, Khan settled the officer-in-charge in this whole deal. Even before Khan arrived in our cell, the officer-in-charge was already in his pocket. You won’t know what 10,000USD cash can do to a Nigerian civil servant if you put it in his pocket until you see how the Officer-in-Charge was fawning toward Khan.
For four weeks, I found myself in the segregation unit of Kuje prison. It was called segregation cell because it was designed to isolate an inmate and keep him away from the prison population. Khan was now being escorted by specially designated inmates and warders for the purpose of ensuring that his path would not cross mine during the 60-minutes-a-day period that I was allowed to come out of my cell. But don’t forget that every warder is so easy to compromise. So, segregation or no segregation, I knew what was going on. I discover within a relatively short time anyway. So, I knew that Khan continued with the Keyamo charade.
Keeping me in segregation was becoming a problem because I was popular with the junior warders. They routinely flouted the orders given to them to be strict with me. I wasn’t as segregated or as isolated as the officer-in-charge had expected. His staff undermined his goal in that respect. Because I was not as isolated as he expected, I had the capacity to reveal to the United States Government that Nigerian prison officials were cooperating with Khan to frustrate his extradition. This was true really because the officer-in-charge and GO gave Khan a phone and sim card with which he was communicating with Keyamo and his people in Pakistan. I knew that if I sent to the District Attorney in New York the WhatsApp number K was using in Kuje, the FBI would be able to track his WhatsApp chats and that it would cause tremendous panic. And I could so easily do that because inmates had easy access to phones in prison. So, the officer-in-charge was really worried about me, especially as he knew that his staff were sympathetic to me. Indeed, they were hostile to their boss, really. One day, the officer-in-charge came to the segregation unit very angry. He was shouting at me. He said: “Barrister Emeka, you are a dangerous man. No other inmate has been able to set my staff against me as you have done. But I will show you that I run this prison”. Honestly, I didn’t see that coming because I was not doing anything in particular to antagonize the warders against their Officer-in-Charge. The warders were acting on their own understanding of events around them.
Two weeks after Keyamo was said to have taken money from Khan, the court granted the government application and ordered that Khan be extradited to the US. It dawned on Khan that I might have been right about Keyamo. But even after the court had ordered the extradition of Khan, a few days before he was to be taken to America, Keyamo still told Khan to bring another 100,000USD which he claimed was demanded by the Attorney-General in order to stop the extradition. I understood that Khan also gave that additional 100,000USD to Keyamo.
I was released from segregation when the pressure became too much on the Officer-in-Charge. When released from solitary confinement, I was placed in another cell in another custody and forbidden from meeting or speaking with Khan. Initially, Khan agreed to stay away from me. But as Keyamo’s promises did not materialize and things were going in the opposite direction, Khan became desperate to speak with me. He sent inmates to reach out to me to seek my advice.
Less than a week after I came out of solitary confinement, I saw the prison official going to remove Khan from his cell. I understood that move, that mood. All of a sudden, officers were laughing and smiling turned stern-faced. Agents of the US Government had come to the prison accompanied by NDLEA officers to take Khan. As Khan was leaving the prison, he saw me and he began to scream so I would hear him: “I need my money back. I need my money back. Keyamo took my money but failed to deliver”. He actually spoke with Keyamo that morning and Keyamo assured him that everything was alright. I felt pity for him. I knew what was awaiting him outside the prison gate. I knew that in less than 24 hours, he would be in New York before a judge that would remand him. I estimated that in addition to the N380,000USD that Khan probably paid to Keyamo, he must have paid additional 130,000USD on other officials and intermediaries.
Khan is now serving his long prison term in the US. I intend to visit him in the US prison to get the full story and to tell him that Keyamo now has a house in America. He can arrange to get his money back.
Why should I or you believe what I was told about Keyamo in the case of Khan? I had to compare what I heard in the case of Khan with what I had known about Keyamo and his law practice, which he now brags about. The following events made it easy for me to believe what I heard about Keyamo in the Khan’s case:
1) In 2011, there was a fee dispute between my law firm in America and the Nigerian Embassy in America. Then the Embassy was headed by Ambassador Ade Adefuye. My firm was in the process of exposing the fact that Ambassador Ade Adefuye connived with several government officials in President Jonathan’s administration to misappropriate 27 million dollars, being the proceeds of sale of Nigerian Government properties in the United States. To stop me, Ambassador Adefuye sent a message to Mrs. Farida Waziri, the then Chairperson of the EFCC. On a routine visit to Nigeria on February, 2011, the EFCC used the DSS to abduct me at the Lagos Airport. Apparently, they had watch-listed my name at the request of Mrs. Farida Waziri and EFCC.
2) I was detained by the EFCC and asked to made a deal that I would keep silent over the matter. I refused. Farida Waziri decided to detain me at their Abuja office, just to please Ambassador Adefuye and allow him and his team time to clean up. I was detained for more than a month before they filed any charge against me. Mrs. Farida Waziri engaged the services of Festus Keyamo to prosecute me. According to Keyamo, Mrs. Waziri said to him: “This man (Emeka Ugwuonye) is a troublemaker, you are the type of person to fight him for me”. Keyamo filed a charge against me at the FCT High Court, accusing me of misappropriating 1. 5 million dollars of the Nigerian Embassy money in Washington DC. No problem! As a lawyer, I was happy to have the opportunity to defend myself in court. But Keyamo did not allow me to defend myself.
3) The day I was granted bail on that charge, Keyamo filed another charge against me at the Federal High Court, accusing me of failure to declare my assets. Keyamo could have amended the charge he filed against me at the FCT High Court to add this new charge. But he wanted to file a separate one-count charge in a different court so that I would have to go through bail application and remand all over. That was a way of denying me the benefit of bail granted by the FCT High Court. At the Federal High Court, Keyamo failed to appear on court on many dates, thereby delaying my arraignment and bail application. Finally, after three months of abusive detention, Justice Bello got very upset and asked the EFCC team led by Keyamo why such abusive practice. Justice Bello granted me bail and insisted it must be perfected that day. I was finally released on May 12, having been detained since February 14.
4) Festus Keyamo even forged a court order suggesting that I was detained pursuant to a detention order. Yes, Keyamo forged a court order ( I still have the order for posterity). After three months of detaining me unlawfully in Nigeria, I returned to the United States, but this time I had two cases to answer in Nigeria. Many people in the US told me not to return to Nigeria. They said it is an evil land that should be avoided since I was able to return to the United States. But I had to return to Nigeria because I needed to defend those cases. I could not be pushed out of Nigeria by Keyamo and Waziri.
5) Of course, I did not keep quiet. I continued to criticize Farida Waziri for corruption and abuse of powers by the EFCC. , In July of 2011 , Keyamo filed application asking the courts to revoke my bail because I was critical of Farida Waziri and EFCC. The courts refused to revoke my bail. When I returned to attend court hearing in November of 2011, Keyamo and Mrs. Farida Waziri conspired to charge me again with an entirely different offense. They claimed that I refused to pay one Nigerian client of my firm who was represented by my firm in New York. They arrested me at the Abuja High Court where I had come to attend court hearing and took me to Lagos. My luggage and everything were still in my hotel. They took me straight from court to the airport and flew me to Lagos. When I got to Lagos, I was detained and charged with refusing to pay the Nigerian client. All these are false allegations. But once a charge has been filed in court, it takes time before you will be able to show that the charges were false. I was detained at the Lagos for another two months waiting for bail hearing and Keyamo did everything to drag and delay my bail hearing. I was granted bail by Justice Christopher Balogun. I returned to the US on December 24, 2011.
6) I now had three EFCC charges lying against me in three different Nigerian courts in two different cities. I had the opportunity of staying away from Nigeria. But I did not want Farida Waziri and Keyamo to force me of Nigeria. So I kept coming to Nigeria to attend court dates. I knew I would defeat Keyamo in court eventually. It would cost money and more, but I would defeat him. So, I refused to stay back in the US.
7) While in EFCC detention in Lagos in December of 2011, I met Senator Festus Ola. He served one tenure as Senator for Ekiti State. Senator Ola was brought to the EFCC cell accused of fraud. Senator Ola’s case was interesting. He was wrongly arrested by the EFCC and he filed fundamental rights enforcement action against the EFCC and won a judgment of 50 million naira. Senator Ola wrote to the EFCC demanding to be paid his judgment amount. According to Senator Ola, Keyamo got wind of the fact that Senator Ola was trying to recover his 50 million judgment. Keyamo contacted Ola and offered to recover the money for Ola if Ola was willing to give him (Keyamo) 33% of the 50 million. Senator Ola turned down Keyamo’s offer. The next day, someone called Ola and told him to come to the office of EFCC to collect his 50 million. Ola went as he was invited, only for him to be arrested and taken to Lagos. When Ola met me at the EFCC cell, he told me about his case and right from there we became friends and he requested me to be his lawyer against the EFCC. From Ola’s case, I had a good idea of how Keyamo operated.
8) By the way, according to sources available to me then, I was told that the friendship between Keyamo and Farida Waziri started before she became the head of the EFCC. They all called her Aunty. When Waziri became the head of EFCC, Keyamo went to her to solicit for favors for old time. She rewarded Keyamo by giving his EFCC cases.
9) When I came back to Nigerian in February of 2012 to attend trial before Justice Balongun, the judge considered the preliminary objection I had filed. In my application I requested the court to dismiss the case against me because the events alleged against me occurred in the United States. There was no way Nigeria court would try an event that occurred in the United States and which was not a crime in the United States. Justice Balogun agreed with me and was clear in his judgment. He even rebuked Keyamo for filing such a frivolous case against me. So, one case was down. I was confident that the same thing would happen to the case they filed against me in Abuja over the alleged 1.5 million case.
10) Both Keyamo and Farida Waziri were aware that they had no case against me because everything they claimed I did wrong occurred in the United States. To ensure that they had something to hold me in Nigeria, they created an offense that could be said to have been committed in Nigeria. While in EFCC detention, they asked me to fill an asset declaration form. I told them that I did not have all the information there and then. They said: “Okay, Barrister, no problem. Just write it down here that you did not have the information”. I wrote it down. They used that to make a case of failure to declare assets against me. Their case was that when I was asked to declare assets, I refused.
11) Because the FCT High Court Judge initially trying the case of 1.5 million dollar against me knew that the case was a pure vendetta, he adjourned it indefinitely. For two years the case did not come up. Keyamo wrote a petition to the Chief Judge accusing the judge of wrongdoing. The case was transferred to another Judge, Justice Chizoba Oji. By now, we were in 2015. The first thing I did before Justice Oji was to file a preliminary objection following similar application as what I made successfully in Lagos. The issues were the same. To block my application, Keyamo claimed that the 1.5 million incident occurred partly in Abuja and he cited the newly enacted Administration of Criminal Justice Act to say that the court could not decide on a preliminary objection until the end of the case. (This is a provision mischievously placed in the Nigerian law to enable the state to use abusive prosecution to punish opponents).
12) With the objections of Keyamo and the lies he told the court; the court could not rule on my objection until after the end of the prosecution’s case. I continued to face two major criminal trials. I represented myself till toward the end, when I finally was able to bring in a very brilliant and able Jeff Njikonye, SAN to dispose of the two matters. I was facing the 1.5 million charge at the FCT High Court and I was facing the failure to declare assets charge at the Federal High Court. These are useless cases which Keyamo pursued against me just to punish me. He held me back with these cases for ten years, while collecting money from Nigerian government for prosecuting these cases.
13) On the 1.5 million cases, Keyamo desperately tried to call witnesses to testify against me. He called Hassan Yusuf, a former official of the Embassy who was familiar with the transaction. But Yusuf could not lie for him. In fact, Yusuf refused to testify against me because he knew I did nothing wrong. Keyamo tried to bring in Mr. Felix Pwol, another former official of the Embassy, but Pwol refused to testify because he knew I did nothing wrong. Keyamo went and brought the poor Professor George Obiozor. He blackmailed the old man into coming to testify for him. But Obiozor’s testimony was favorable to me in the end.
14) On February 24, 2021, the judge of the Federal High Court discharged and acquitted me of the charge, holding that I did not do anything wrong and that the manner in which they tried to get me to declare my assets was manipulative and abusive. They were desperate to set me up. Also, on July 2, the judge of the FCT High Court dismissed the charges against me concerning the 1.5 million dollars. In other words, in July 2021, the court finally decided the application I filed in 2012 and repeated in 2015. The court delayed that application for 9 years because Keyamo lied to the courts about basic facts of the case. The court, in its judgement, observed that the only connection Keyamo was able to show between Nigeria and the offense alleged was that I visited Nigeria and they found me at the Lagos airport. Further, the court wondered: “But if the link with Nigeria was that you found him at the Lagos Airport, why did you bring him to Abuja Court? Is there no court in Lagos?”
I went to this length to show you who Kayemo is, how he probably made money in 2019, which he probably used to buy a house in America in 2021. Also, I noticed that Keyamo was bragging about his great law practice. I wanted to show you the truth about his law practice and the kind of things he does and on the basis of which he claims to be a great lawyer. If that is it, it then means that being crooked and dishonest is what it takes to be a great lawyer in Nigeria. In fact, in his application to become a SAN, Keyamo must have cited his cases against me as proof that he is a good lawyer. And they made him a SAN for that. Nigerians have a lot to feel ashamed of for having a country like this. Keyamo is a cheap crook, and he knows it. I can reveal more about him, if given the opportunity.
For Keyamo to claim to be a successful and honest lawyer is a great irony. The only good thing is that he can now be sued in America so easily. God is bringing him closer to justice. US is not a jungle where he has thrived. All his life, he would hide behind a powerful institution to commit atrocities. He hid behind Farida Waziri and the EFCC. Now, he can hide behind the President-Elect to commit more atrocities. But Nigerians are not as stupid as he thinks. They are watching him.
