In a dangerous scheme that threatens to bring the anti-corruption posture of President Umar Yar’Adua to ridicule, the ICPC is enmeshed in a controversy over a plan to cover up the certificate forgery case levelled against Rep. Ibrahim Yushau Kanya and his brother.
By Desmond Utomwen /Abuja
Nasiru Garba Dantiye, a former member of the House of Representatives, believes that the Re-branding Project of the Federal Government will fail. The factors most likely to bring about the failure, in Dantiye’s view, is endemic corruption and the reluctance to fight it. That reluctance, he suspects, is typified by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC.
Dantiye’s suspicion was sparked by the claims of Ibrahim Yushau Kanya, a member of the House of Representatives representing Garki/Babura Federal Constituency in Jigawa State. In a petition sent to the ICPC, Dantiye alleged that Kanya used the West African Examination Council certificate of his younger brother to gain admission into the Federal College of Education, FCE, Kano. The certificate, fraudulently obtained from the FCE, was to form part of the credentials submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as the needed requirement for the 2007 election. But independent investigations by Dantiye blew open the secret. When the case was first reported via Dantiye’s petition, the Kanyas were arrested and quizzed by operatives of the ICPC.
Thereafter, Ibrahim Kanya became a regular guest of the anti-graft agency. At one point, this magazine learnt, the two brothers were granted bail in the sum of N5million and N3million respectively. Sources said Senator Mujitaba Mohammed Malam and one Malam Muhammad, a primary school teacher in Babura, were drafted by the state government to sign the bail bond with the ICPC. Mujitaba is a former Speaker of the Jigawa State House of Assembly. Kanya served as his deputy. The freedom from ICPC prompted a huge celebration by Kanya’s supporters in his hometown of Kanya in Babura Local Government of Jigawa State on 30 January. In jubilation, the crowd sang that their embattled leader had been permanently freed from the ICPC. The celebration, however, raised suspicions that the case may have been buried, with the tactical support of ICPC officials. Kanya, who kept a low profile after his release on bail, was said to have obtained assurances from influential backers that adequate steps had been taken to ensure protection from the law. Though they realise that the matter is criminal in nature, they allegedly assured Kanya that it would be treated as a family matter. But that approach is unappealing to Dantiye, who lost his seat to Kanya in the last election. He is minded to see Kanya face trial for forgery, perjury, impersonation and lying on oath. To realise this, he is considering taking the matter to the ECOWAS Court.
In a letter dated 4 February and addressed to the ICPC Chairman, Dantiye, who expressed displeasure at the commission’s perceived disinterest in the matter, stated that in the acknowledgement of the Commission to his petition dated 24 June 2008, it promised to him give a report in respect of the investigation. But the petitioner noted that till date, nothing has been revealed to him. “There seems to be an ominous silence in the face of this serious complaint to your commission. I write this letter to express my shock and dismay in the way the complaint appears to me to have been treated. I hope the voice of the weak and the oppressed will also be held and considered in order to have a clean and corruption-free society,” he wrote.
When TheNEWS called the investigative officer, one David, he said: “I don’t have any idea. Call the office.” He quickly hung up. When this magazine met Mike Sowe, ICPC’s head of public enlightenement, he said: “I am tired of hearing that story, I am tired of hearing that story. It is better you come and meet the chairman to speak on it.” But when reminded that the structure required that he fix the appointment with the chairman for the journalists, he reluctantly accepted and asked our reporter over to the commission’s headquarters. But no appointment was about
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