The presidency has decided to keep mum on a
minister who was indicted for fraud when he held office in a different
capacity.
The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Usani,
was indicted for financial impropriety for his role when he held office during
the military era.
PREMIUM TIMES is in possession of a government
white paper which documented Mr. Usani’s indictment after he was found guilty
of fraud in 2000 by a panel established by the Cross River State Government.
Mr. Usani, who had just finished serving as the
Cross River State Commissioner for Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural
Development, appeared in 1999 before a government committee set up to
investigate financial impropriety among officials of the preceding military
administration in the state.
The committee, officially known as Financial
Impropriety/Verification Standing Committee, was inaugurated in 1999 by the then
governor, Donald Duke.
It was chaired by Orok Oyo, and had Andy Ikpeme,
Ekpe Ita, Otu Oka and Akomaye Adie as members.
According to the document, Mr. Usani, because of
his alleged intent to defraud the government, was said to have refused to apply
government approved scales, when he paid out some money as fees to Gersh
Henshaw & Company, a firm of estate surveyors and valuers, which handled
the contract for the valuation of vehicles, workshops and equipment belonging
to the Cross River State Water Board.
The valuation was said to be part of the African
Development Bank water project in the state.
Gersh Henshaw & Company
was paid a lump sum in dollars, the document said.
The committee said the
state government lost N16.323 million because of Mr. Usani’s “deliberate”
action.
Mr. Duke’s administration,
apart from accepting the committee’s report, directed that the N16,323,150 be
recovered from Mr. Usani, and that he should be prosecuted.
The government, according
to the document, accepted to forward particulars of the transaction to the Code
of Conduct Tribunal, with a complaint of financial impropriety and abuse of
office against Mr. Usani.
It also accepted to
blacklist Gersh Henshaw & Company from getting further patronage from the
government.
PREMIUM TIMES couldn’t
verify, as at the time of publishing this report, if the state government
recovered the money from Mr. Usani, and if it also handed over the case to the
Code of Conduct Tribunal.
Mr. Oyo, the chairman of
the committee which indicted Mr. Usani, said the minister never went to court
to challenge the indictment.
Cross River
keeps mum
Like most other white
papers by various tiers of government, which some analysts have blamed for the
impunity among public officials on corruption matters, Mr. Usani’s indictment
appears not to have been followed through by the Cross River government.
The current
Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Cross River, Joe Abang, declined
to be interviewed by this newspaper when he was contacted on phone.
His counterpart in the
Ministry of Information, Rosemary Archibong, told PREMIUM TIMES that, “You can
talk about government white paper if you have it. I am not in the position to
comment on the criminal aspect of it, because it is only the court that can
decide on that”.
None of them would comment
on whether the state planned to take any further action on the indictment.
Mr. Usani, who served as
commissioner from 1997 to 1999 under the military administration of Colonel
Umar Ahmed, did not pick calls nor respond to text messages sent to his
telephone line.
The 55-year-old politician,
who is also a pastor, was Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Cross
River before he was appointed minister in 2015 by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Before then, he contested
for governorship in the state in 2003 under the National Democrats (ND) and
again in 2012 under the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.
It is unclear how Mr. Usani
was able to scale through the usual thorough background and security checks
when he was slated for a ministerial appointment.
Presidency
keeps mum
For an administration whose
major mantra has been the war on corruption, the Muhammadu Buhari
administration has kept mum on the minister’s indictment.
When PREMIUM TIMES
contacted presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, he asked that an email be
sent to him. He is yet to respond to the email over two days after it was sent.
Should the presidency
decide to shield Mr. Usani, he may not be the first to enjoy such privilege by
the administration.
The administration has
received a lot of criticisms from Nigerians for its treatment of corruption
allegations levelled against the current Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai,
and the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau.
Mr. Usani’s case is,
however, unique as his indictment has been made official by a government
gazette.
...Premiumtimes
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