As he prepared to exit office as Nigeria’s 15th Head of State, President Muhammadu Buhari had a major issue to resolve: the case of Nigeria’s former chief spymaster, Ayodele Oke, the former top gun of the country’s intelligence community.
Six years ago, Mr Oke became the bot of a controversy around the security lodging of $43 million, 27 thousand pounds, and N23 million, belonging to the National Intelligence Agency [NIA], at an Osborne Road apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos, leading to his removal as NIA chief and a prosecutorial process to determine his culpability in the case.
The case also led to a major interagency crisis, resulting, at some points, in operatives of the NIA and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, prosecutors of the case, dramatically drawing guns at each other, and causing embarrassing diplomatic show offs at the Asokoro District of the Federal Capital Territory which houses the residence of the NIA Director General.
After half a decade of diligent investigations, however, early in March this year, the two agencies led by the current Director-General of the NIA, Ahmed Abubakar, and Abdul Rasheed Bawa, the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) reached to each other, resolving to terminate the case in the interest of national security, and because the money had been fully forfeited to the government.
Inside sources from both agencies confided in PREMIUM TIMES Sunday night in Abuja that “the agencies took their resolution to President Buhari who noted their position, thus paving the way for the termination of the case before the expiration of his administration.”
