Reps to investigate NPF's alleged intimidation of Whistleblowers

Committee Chairman, Rep. Mark Gbillah, emphasises the need to give special protection to whistleblowers in the country in line with the current administration’s policy of fighting corruption.

Committee says whistleblowers were intimidated by a retired DIG in the Force Criminal Investigative Department (FCID) who forced them at gunpoint to sign an undertaking not to reveal details of the deal.

Any law enforcement agency wanting to track an individual or persons (foreigner or a Nigerian) involved in any crime that involves foreign nationals writes to us, and we do due diligence before putting such an individual on red alert, and this particular case is not different.
– AIG Garba Umar, Head of INTERPOL, Nigeria

Whistleblowers

The House of Representatives on Thursday commenced hearing into an allegation of 48 million barrels of crude amounting to the tune of $2.4 billion in oil revenue said to have been illicitly exported and sold in China.

Consequently, the lawmakers drilled the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Umar Garba, who appeared before the Committee over allegations of intimidating the whistleblowers of the illicit deal to conceal information and shield the personalities involved.

At the commencement of the hearing organised by the House Special Ad-hoc Committee, its Chairman, Rep. Mark Gbillah, emphasised the need to give special protection to whistleblowers in the country, which he noted was in line with the current administration’s policy of fighting corruption.

The aforementioned deal was carried out in 2015 by state officials, led by a former Chief of Staff to President Muhamadu Buhari, the late Abba Kyari, following revelations by a Mexican businessman and two of his Nigerian counterparts whose names were not disclosed, that the nation’s crude was being hidden in a Chinese Port.

Given the importance of the investigation, the lawmakers knocked the Police Chief for sending an Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) to stand in for him instead of appearing in person According to the lawmakers, the whistle was blown in 2020, but the House decided to take its time to take action in that regard because it needed to ascertain the identity and personality of the individuals involved.

Furthermore, the Committee found out that prior to its investigation, the whistleblowers were intimidated by a retired Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), Michael Obeazi of the Force Criminal Investigative Department (FCID), who forced them at gunpoint to sign an undertaking not to reveal details of the deal.

According to Rep. Gbillah, “This allegation is courtesy of a whistleblower’s revelation. The Committee finds it curious that two months after the motion was presented on the floor of the House of Representatives, then the INTERPOL Arm of the Police wrote to the persons involved. If you suddenly wrote these individuals (whistleblowers) inviting them, so how did you get their numbers or names to reach out to them?

Secondly, INTERPOL has not right to carry out such an investigation except the local Police. The crude in question was sold without the money being remitted to the federal government coffers.

The 48 million (barrels of) crude sale was done by some Nigerians (government officials) in connivance with an individual from Mexico, and the Committee has vowed to get to the root of the corruption by taking a trip to Mexico after an interface with the Mexican Ambassador to Nigeria this evening on the issue,” The lawmaker disclosed.

In his submission, AIG Garba Umar said: “Part of my responsibilities is to assist law enforcement agencies in carrying out some of these investigations. However, I was not the Head of the INTERPOL Department when this issue was being investigated in 2020.

Any law enforcement agency wanting to track an individual or persons (foreigner or a Nigerian) involved in any crime that involves foreign nationals writes to us, and we do due diligence before putting such an individual on red alert, and this particular case is not different.

This case was reported to us, but I also got wind that some of these persons (the whistleblowers) who were arrested in regard to this case, absconded to other countries after being granted bail in order to escape justice. The INTERPOL is ready to assist the Nigerian Parliament in this investigation. The suspect in question, after being granted bail absconded, so the National Central Bureau of INTERPOL (NCBI) was only contacted to assist, and we were not asked to investigate and neither did we intimidate anyone,” Umar Garba insisted.

Recall that in 2015, the federal government had set up a Presidential Committee to ascertain the quantity of Nigeria’s crude stored in China but later sold without the consent of the authorities.

The Committee adjourned the hearing for another date when all the relevant parties in the case would be present.

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