Vice
President Atiku Abubakar Must Explain!
By
Paul I.
Adujie
Lawcareer@msn.com
New
York, United States
Two seconds after he was sworn in as Vice President of Nigeria on
May
29, 1999, he ceased to be a private citizen, as it were. And as a Nigerian
public official, he is required to abide by and comply with relevant
provisions of Nigeria’s Constitution, in conjunction with the Code of
Conduct Act, which prescribes specific standard of conduct expected and
demanded of public officials in Nigeria.
Recent revelations suggest that Vice President Atiku Abubakar may have
affronted these laws and rules. As a public official who is bound by
provisions of these laws, he must now explain the discrepancies between
his claimed ownership of landed property in Maryland, United States and a
counter claim by one Jennifer Iwenjiora? Jennifer Douglas E? and Jennifer
Jamilah Douglas E Abubakar. Nigeria’s current vice president had sought to
deflect questions by ThisDay newspapers journalist, in an interview
published on August 21, 2005 regarding this aforesaid property.
Vice President Atiku Abubakar is bound by our Constitution and our Laws,
in view of what now looks like a huge scandal, the VP must make full,
complete disclosures of all material facts, relating all the issues raised
by his ownership of a property acquired or purchased in 2000 in Maryland
United States, (outside of Nigeria) after he became VP
Our vice president must address these allegations or be compelled to
address them!
Available facts so far indicate a clear violation of the laws of Nigeria
by the VP.
The vice president has variously described the house or mansion in
Maryland, United States, as his house, or his wife’s, depending on who is
doing the explaining! Some of the vice president’s aides and retinue of
assistants, have impishly attempted to deflect Nigerian journalists’
enquiries or questions, with answers such as, “do you mean the vice
president’s wife’s house in the United States?” Whereas, the vice
president himself, has already, arrogantly, told a ThisDay journalist only
two Sundays ago, August 21, 2005 to be precise, that the matter of HIS
house in the United States “is no big deal”! And that he, the vice
president, did not know what the heck, the ThisDay journalist was talking
about!
Vice President Atiku Abubakar of Nigeria, has publicly admitted ownership
of the Maryland property during his interview with a Nigerian journalist
with ThisDay Newspapers, the vice president during that interview sought
to downplay and minimize the import and consequences of these disclosures,
by pretending and attempting to deflect questions as he arrogantly stated
that “it was no big deal” as he added that he has owned a property in
Maryland since 1994. The vice president, obviously engaged in
disinformation, as he disingenuously want the public to believe that the
property raided by the FBI in Maryland, was purchased in 1994, when in
fact it was bought in year 2000!
Many questions have therefore arisen, among which are: Who is the real
owner of this property? When will the real owner of this property stand
up? Why would the vice president claim to own the property and then
misstate the date it was acquired which is 2000 as against his false date
of 1994? If this house was transferred to the lady with multiple-surnames,
Jennifer Jamilah etc, when did the transfer take place? Was such transfer
publicly recorded? Is the VP now retracting his public acknowledgement of
his ownership, with a view of relying on the legal fiction of Jennifer
ownership? Oh yes! Her name is on the property, but pray, tell us, the
source of her wealth, financing for this mansion of hers?
More questions are raised as well, regarding the status of Lady Jamilah
Jennifer, assuming that she is determined to be the vice president wife,
concubine, mistress or kept woman and girlfriend, what is her source of
wealth? How could she afford a two million dollar house and maintain it,
even though she a college student? Did Jennifer win any Lottery or Lotto?
If she did, what is and where is the evidence of that?
Who is this multiple-named Jennifer? Why does she answer to various names?
Why is Nigeria’s vice president associated with such lady? What interests
does she have in this house in Maryland, United States?
What interests does the vice president have in this same property
purchased in 2000 after Mr. Atiku Abubakar became vice president upon
which he became bound by the provisions of Nigeria’s constitution and the
Code of Code Act, which prohibits Nigerian public officials from owning
properties outside of Nigeria, including, the ownership of bank accounts,
houses and such other resources or assets.
Is Lady Jamilah Jennifer (multiple surnames) a convenient excuse for the
vice president? Is Jennifer Jamilah a mere conduit, a funnel, a shield and
a façade or camouflage for the deceit? Nigerian taxpayers and voters are
interested in finding out the real owner of this property and the source
of money that financed it. Nigerian taxpayers and voters demand that the
vice president urgently provide explanations to these questions and more.
Is Jennifer a mere conduit, a front, and a cover for her El Dorado or
Sugar Daddy? And it also raises the question of what some Nigerian women
deserve, how many Ph. D holders are willing to be fourth wife, absentee
wife at that, to someone twenty years older than them? Only just because
such man possess power clout money, regardless of the source of such
wealth? What standards of responsibility should we hold these types of
Nigerian women?
Who exactly is Lady Jamilah Jennifer? Is she an innocent bystander in all
of these? Is she just some docile college student and an accidental
beneficiary of the VP’s largesse or a conniving looter of Nigeria’s
taxpayer money, moneys that would have been better spent on Nigeria’s
public infrastructure? Is Lady Jamilah Jennifer on the other hand another
scam artist who may have duped individuals and corporations in America
into donating millions of dollars in the name of Nigeria and Nigerians,
but for her own illegal purpose? Has she utilized moneys or proceeds of
her fundraisers for the exact purposes that she outlined, and to which she
represented in solicitations to individuals and corporate donors? Has she
maintained accurate books of account that are verifiable, that would
indicate her accountability and transparency? Are there audited accounts,
attesting to the accuracy of receipt and expenditure by her Gede
Foundation? Is Jennifer an interloper?
How did she acquire a two million dollar house? How could she afford to
donate $25,000.00 to the Republican Party of President Bush? And she is
not known to have won any lotteries! Meanwhile she is a student in
American University? How many of her classmates are able to afford a two
million dollars house and donate $25,000.00 to any political party? She is
not reported to have any substantial income, and yet she could donate
twenty-five thousand dollars as an individual to the Republican Party?
And what worthy cause Nigerian, do the Republican Party members support or
represent? the election of Vice President Atiku Abubakar as Nigeria’s
president in 2007? We must have to wonder whether Lady Jamilah Jennifer
would have offered in donations, her own hard earned money, all
twenty-five thousand dollars of them to the Republican Party? Except of
course, because she is or was being bankrolled by Nigerian taxpayers,
courtesy of the current vice president of Nigeria?
Many Nigerians in America and most Nigerians in Nigeria cannot afford to
donate $25,000.00 to charity, let alone, the already filthy rich
Republican Party in the United States, a political party that represents,
a party, that is the epitome of everything anti Nigeria, anti Africa and
anti peoples of African descent! But of course it would not have bothered
anyone or me, for that matter, if it involved moneys honestly earned or
acquired by Lady Jamilah Jennifer Iwenjiora, Douglas E Atiku Abubakar….
(will the real Jennifer stand up please?)
By all accounts, Lady Jennifer Jamilah Abubakar or Douglas E or Iwenjiora
is said to also be the person behind a Non-governmental Organization, Gede
Foundation.org which has sought American public support, financial
support, using the name of Nigeria and Nigerians to solicit monetary
donations from American individuals and corporations, informing them all,
that funds so received would be used to ameliorate the precarious
conditions of Nigerians and other Africans suffering from the AIDS and HIV
scourge.
It is against the law, and public morality, to use proceeds garnered from
fundraisers conducted by charitable organization such as Gede Foundation,
for purely personal use, there will be no basis in law therefore, for Lady
Jennifer Jamilah to pretend that proceeds from her “charitable work”
financed the acquisition or purchase of the Maryland property; If that was
the case, the property should rightly bear the name of Gede Foundation,
even though Gede is not in the business of real estate! And even if that
was her defense, Nigerians and American public will want to peruse her
books! How is her bookkeeping? What is her annual personal income? How
much in local, state and federal taxes did she pay since year 2000 when
the property was purchased?
Nigerian and American publics, would want to know the extent of Gede
Foundation’s actual work, actual impact and actual effect on the lives of
the target population of AIDS?HIV victims in Nigeria, Africa and
elsewhere. We will all want to know the extent of Gede Foundation actual
presence in Nigeria and the extent of its expenditure, commitments in real
terms, since its inception and upon receipt of millions of dollars in the
name of Nigeria, Nigerians and AIDS/HIV victims!
It is relevant to determine whether Lady Jennifer Jamilah has complied
with local, state and federal laws of the United States in her “purchase
and ownership” of the above mentioned property in Maryland United States,
it is important to determine her personal income as a house wife cum
college student who presides over a mansion, in the lap of luxury or
decadent opulence? Has she usurped the resources of Gede Foundation?
Donations to Gede Foundation by individuals persons and corporate bodies,
were intended specifically for social work, and Gede Foundation portrayed
itself as a socially responsible organization, upon which public-spirited
persons and corporations donated millions of dollars to Gede Foundation,
to enable Gede Foundation provide services to the less fortunate in our
societies, to alleviate the dire conditions.
It is instructive that the FBI is said to have taken the property deed and
building plans, it will, in all likelihood, enable them ascertain the real
owners and what transactions regarding the property has transpired over
the years, and that should resolve the discrepancies in the arrogant
obfuscation of Vice President, his staff and all those who have tried to
engage in all manners of cover-ups!
Messrs Jonathan Elendu and Omoyole Sowore have blown off the lid off, of,
this property in Maryland, United States which many Nigerians have talked
about often, as the symbol of endemic corruption, the brazen avarice and
greed that some Nigerian officials continue to indulge themselves in, and
until now, there were not enough specifics. So it remained the usual rumor
mills, (coffee shop gossip, a la President Obasanjo on Mr. Babangida)
Pepper-soup and beer parlor genres of idle banter gossips.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations, FBI, is investigating one William
Jefferson, an American, and a Congressman from the state of Louisiana, who
has had extensive contact with some Nigerian officials during a period
spanning over ten years. More particularly, this Jefferson guy has had
contacts with Nigerian officials regarding privatization and possible
participation by an American company in the telecommunication industry,
and its interests in NITEL.
We are splendidly uninterested in William Jefferson and his apparent
troubles with the FBI and the United States government, we are however
keen on possible explanations from Nigeria’s vice president regarding the
activities of this man, in relation to his visit to the vice president.
Nigerians are also entitled to specific and detailed explanations from our
vice president, explanations regarding the disputed ownership of his house
in Maryland, United States. Who really owns this house?
Nigerians over time, have become aware that Vice President Atiku was an
officials of the Nigerian Customs Service, that bastion of proper conduct
and ethical behavior in Nigeria, the VP thereafter transmuted into some
sorts of instant business mogul and magnate, with interests in petroleum,
pharmaceuticals, a private university, the whole lot, in common with
almost every other former and current public officials! Whatever happened
to ethics and conflict of interests rules? Mr. Ibrahim Babangida, I am
told, also now possess a private university? Who is next, among retired
generals gets a private university, need we ask?
Allegations have also been rife, of how the vice president was placed in
charge of the Bureau for Public Enterprises or BPE, that was supposed to
conduct an above-board privatization and deregulation processes, which
have been notoriously engineered to favor personal interests over and
above Nigeria’s national interests in preserving and protecting those
assets, sold only to the highest bidder and for the utmost benefit of
Nigeria. But instead, the vice president has been repeatedly fingered for
self-dealing and conflicts of interest transactions relating to the BPE
etc deals.
NITEL is one such federal entity in Nigeria, which is still striding to
become fully privatized, with sundry allegations haven trailed all such
efforts. I guess that we can begin to connect the dots, as William
Jefferson dealings and visit to the vice president in the vexing two
million dollars property in Maryland, was in connection with a
telecommunications deal, with broadband connectivity as its main focus.
In light of the unfolding scandalous revelations, it is beginning to look,
more and more as if, putting the vice president in charge of the BPE may
have been akin putting a hyena or a fox in charge of a hen-house! How do
we trust the hyena or fox with the chickens? Who exactly, was minding the
Nigerian national store? Were Nigeria’s national assets allowed to be
pillage, for mansions in Maryland, and some in New York? How do we
Nigerians, now prevent the hyenas and foxes from continuing devour our
chickens, in this case, our national assets and public treasury?
Who exactly was watching on behalf of Nigerians at home and abroad, as our
national assets are being auctioned or are being put on the chopping
blocks? Particularly, if the man who supervised the auctions of our
national assets, is such a man that has been funding the life of luxury
for a college student, who we are now told, is the beneficiary of a
two-million dollars and a happy-hooker sorts of donor to the Republican
Party, a political party that is not Nigerian, African friendly, just as
it is hostile to African Americans and the interests of all peoples of
African descent!
Nigerian taxpayers and voters, certainly, are entitled to demand and
expect precise explanations, Nigerians will need to know, if the man that
is already angling to be President Obasanjo’s successor as Nigeria’s
president, come 2007, now has a cloud of misconduct, impropriety, a
violation of ethics, a commission of illegalities or crime over his head?
He cannot allow this odium to continue to swirl, he must address these
charges!
Nigerians are entitled to full material disclosures! Disclosures of all
material facts, the VP must provide sufficient facts, to either, exculpate
self, Jennifer and become exonerated by impartial observers. Otherwise, he
should resign honorably from his post, and might as well forget the
loftier dream of becoming the president of Nigeria, ever!
There are too many discrepancies in the stories so far told by the VP, his
aides, assistants and sundry defenders, the information generated thus
far, by this scandalous saga, appear to be an avalanche of
inconsistencies, odious wealth with admixtures of arrogance. In which the
VP is quoted as saying that in the beginning, the allegations were no big
deal! Or that he did not understand what the heck the ThisDay journalist
was talking about! Nigeria media, as have been rebuked recently by Femi
Olawole, Sonala Olumhense and Seyi Oduyela, Nigerian media surely need to
arise to their responsibilities of the fourth estate of the realm, as it
were….The Nigerian media must stop asking easy questions or questions that
permit easy landing for their interview subjects, especially, public
officials and all those responsible for policies affecting the general
public. ThisDay journalist had asked the right questions in the interview
with the VP, but allowed the VP to get away with incomplete and even
offensive answers! No more softball and tepid questions for public
officials!
Some Nigerians are already saying that some malevolent in Nigeria, are
playing a mind twisting game on all of us, as corruption case against the
VP may be used to remove him as a presidential contender against Mr.
Ibrahim Babangida, who would look good by default, if the VP is out of
contention, this is conspiracy theory so far, at least to me, I am not an
IBB fan and a demand of the VP to make full disclosures or be compelled,
is therefore not any efforts to help IBB on my part, or on the part of
anyone that I know! As a matter of fact, the demands that we make, apply
to Babangida as well!
What is being revealed, in all probabilities, are a brazen or flagrant
violation of Nigerian and American laws! What peeping into, is what
appears to be a cesspit of odious wealth coupled with the attendant
arrogance and contempt for decency by the individual participants in this
saga. It is crystal clear demonstration of the immorality that has become
pervasive in country. There is high rate of unemployment, there are
decaying public infrastructures, there is permeating hardships,
desperations and hopelessness, in which two generations of Nigerians have
fled home to live overseas, and a continuing desperation by those in
Nigeria to leave Nigeria still!
But despite all these horrors faced by the average citizens of Nigeria,
evidence in public domain reveal that one Miss Felicia Wabara bought a
million dollars worth landed property in New York this year! Additionally,
one Mr. Olu G Obasanjo, also purchase and equally expensive house, in New
York, this year as well! Nigerian law enforcement agencies, the Police
through InterPol , the EFCC, ICPC and the Code of Conduct Bureau etc, must
quickly, urgently liaise with their American counterparts, in order to get
to the bottom of all these almost obvious cases of avarice, greed,
corruption and unconscionable abuse of public trust, to which Nigerians
repose in Nigerian public officials. The vice president and Jennifer are
entitled to the presumption of innocence, even as they will be
investigated in America and Nigeria, there is no rush to judgment or
prejudgment of outcomes here, it must however be clear, that they make
full complete disclosures, be forthright forthwith. Perhaps the Pandora
Box is finally about to open? Let chips fall!
Is it safe to assume that Ms. Felicia Wabara is the wife of former
president of Nigerian Senate, Adolphous Wabara, who herself was formerly
resident in New York City and was not in a position to acquire a million
dollar house cash down? Is it safe to equally assume that Olu Obasanjo G,
is Olugbenga Obasanjo, President Obasanjo’s son? A son who have been
speculated and rumored to be in some sorts of deals? Or are we to assume
that mischief makers are buying homes in the names of the Wabaras and the
Obasanjos?
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/tax/ViewParcel.asp?ParcelCode=02278403
http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/DocSearch.dll/Detail?Doc_ID=2005031501101001
http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/DocSearch.dll/Detail?Doc_ID=2005032100372001
Our governments, and the individuals concerned will do well to investigate
and demand explanations from those concerned, and then explain all these
to all Nigerians!
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