Yahaya Bello: But what happened, EFCC?

I don’t think I am the only one asking the question above which doubles as the title of this piece.

And I have no doubt that even within the circle of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, there must be those who are asking similar question except that they may not have the courage to voice their opinions or the opportunity of an answer.

After months of hide and seek, former Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, made a surprise appearance at the headquarters of the anti-corruption commission on Wednesday September 18, 2024.

That was exactly five months after he was declared wanted by the agency on April 18, 2024. It was something like the “White Lion” walking into the den.

Bello showed up at a time he was no longer the topic in the face of Nigeria cascading on a litany of other political and economic galloping. Thus, his sudden appearance, which was preceded by a well-timed statement by his media office had suddenly jumped to the front pages of the news on that day. Many were anxious to know what fate would befall Bello, who, as EFCC indicated, had had his cup full over his alleged refusal to honour its invitations.

And the impression we have all had was that Bello did not want to be questioned over the alleged theft of over N80bn belonging to Kogi state.

This impression was further helped by the Chairman of the commission himself when he revealed that he once granted Bello special privilege by making his office available as an interrogation room.

“On my honour, I put a call to him to honour him as a former governor. He said, I can’t come, claiming that a certain lady has surrounded the EFCC with over 100 Journalists to embarrass or intimidate him and all that stuff. I said if that is your fear, I will make you come directly to my floor.

“I will invite my operatives to interrogate you in my own office. What could be more honourable than that? Do you know what he said? ‘ Can’t they come to my village?”

With the attention that had trailed his fiasco with the commission in about five months, not many were taken aback realising that the EFCC didn’t know what to do with a man that had been on its wanted radar, at the very critical moment when he showed up.

With Bello in its net, many had anticipated EFCC would swing into interrogations that could see the former governor spend hours, if not a whole day or more on the hot seat.

The optimism wasn’t that high for the “White Lion” to walk out of the Den the way he did on Wednesday only for the commission to renew his status as a wanted man an hour later.
In the statement released by the media office of the former governor, he had said that while submitting himself to the commission, he had expected commission officials to be as professional as possible.

To the chagrin of many, Michael was to come back a while after his first statement to say that his boss had left the EFCC office but without being interrogated.
What Happened?

It was learnt that Bello was not even allowed to enter the main office of the commission after passing through the security check let alone sit with any official of the commission for the business of interrogation to begin.

The revelation that Bello was not interrogated had caught many by surprise. And much more amazing was the decision of the EFCC to then, perhaps less than an hour after the former Governor’s exit from its office, state that he remained a wanted person.
Wanted? A man who submitted himself to your office?

As gathered from sources close to the drama, it was learnt that Bello’s manner of surrendering himself (coming with a sitting Governor to its office) was an affront and a subtle intimidation of the commission.

On the premise that the former governor had allegedly rubbished the EFCC in the almost one year that he left office, the commission believed that Bello should not come to its office accompanied with a sitting governor, hence the desire to activate its own arrest mechanism and bring him in only on its own terms.

But the argument that Bello came to the EFCC office accompanied with a governor pales into insignificance with the turn of event where operatives, that night, took its arrest mechanism to the Kogi State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja where the same governor was also supposed to be with Bello. Clips of scenes of gunshots in the neighourhood of the Kogi state lodge are not to the credit of the commission.

And that coupled with the fact that the EFCC arrest mechanism was not effective enough to bring him manacled, as one can safely guess, was the main objective?

A week after that incident, I am yet to see the logic in allowing a man accused of N80bn financial misdeeds walk away after offering you an effortless opportunity to take him in.

I have had reason to sit with the EFCC chairman once since his appointment and I must confess that the encounter gave me the impression of a man truly angered by the kleptomania that has kept this country down for decades. He beamed with the zeal to lay his knees on the necks of those bleeding Nigeria to death. Many who watched him on national televisions lecture during his screening must have come away with the same impression.

Indeed, I recall how he vowed to ensure that a former Attorney General is brought to book for many of his alleged malfeasance in office while that Minister of Justice dictated the lawful and the unlawful in this country.

But with the turn of events, Mr. Ola Olukoyede’s true friends must tell him (even if that sounds bitter) that the strategy employed in the Bello matter has not worked. If anything, it has strengthened the argument that there might just be no N80bn missing anywhere and that someone somewhere just wants the head of the “White Lion” for an evening of pepper soup and some Skelewu dance trampling on his helpless torso.

In my view, Bello’s case seems to have put out the commission in some very bad light forcing one to query the very thought processes leading to some of the actions taken so far on this case.

By my reckoning, even if the EFCC chairman has all the good intentions with his agenda, does he have the personnel to drive the vision? And by personnel, we must include whether he has around him, officials who have the courage to tell him the bitter truth especially when it comes to the commission’s operational modus operandi under him.

In the case of Yahaya Bello, could someone have, at the nick of time on September 18th, dissuaded the EFCC Chairman by telling him that sending him away uninterrogated would throw up some unsavoury backlash?

Every institutional leader needs around him, those who can speak some unpatronizing words for them to achieve their goals.

Of course, it might just be that Olukoyede is not surrounded by good advisers only, the commission has some bad eggs whose agenda are just at variance with the very objectives of the commission.

Just on Tuesday September 24th, Martins Vincent Otse, popularly called VeryDarkMan again put Olukoyede’s commission on the spotlight with his revelation and allegation that some officials took a bribe of N15m to drop the money laundering allegations against cross-dresser, Idris Okuneye (Bobrisky).

A good thing he has ordered probe and we do not know where the pendulum swings on this new development. The onus is on the accuser to prove his allegations.

But then, at a time that the odour of the Yahaya Bello arrest saga is still fresh and generating wrong vibes, the Bobrisky bribery development all adds up for something not making the optics look good.

No one is in doubt the very debilitating impacts of brazen frauds on the country. And the very reason a commission such as the EFCC would enjoy support of the civil society, anti-corruption crusading organisations and the media.

However, I doubt if Olukoyede did not leave many of those whose support he had enjoyed, wondering whether something is not going amiss. Assuming without conceding that Bello truly has helped himself with an N80bn theft, he has succeeded in boxing the EFCC into a bad corner to explain it has no other motive other than fighting corruption.

Apart from Bello, how many of the EFCC’s wanted persons would submit themselves and still be asked to go away for them to be arrested ‘properly?’ And that is why many would keep demanding answer on this case from the EFCC, what happened?

Okanlawon is the publisher NPO Reports, Lagos.