By Chidi Matthew, SaharaReporters
“We did our findings and discovered that truly, it is an established fact yet to be confirmed by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant, that the said 500 bags of rice were sold at the rate of 31 million naira and sent to an account linked to the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President.”
The above quote was the words of Comrade Musa Mu’azu Musa, convener of the Disability Hub Africa, who has been at the forefront of the unraveling of the alleged misappropriation of 500 bags of rice handed over to the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President (SSAP) on Special Needs and Equal Opportunities, Alhaji Mohammed Abba Isa, for distribution to persons with disabilities (PWDs) across the country.
Musa has claimed that the Office of the SSAP received 1000 bags of 50kg rice in May this year from the Nigeria Customs Service office in Lagos, to distribute to persons with disabilities across the six geopolitical zones of the country, but that even as of October this year, the said rice cannot be accounted for.
Musa further claimed that he received seven petitions from the different communities that make up the Consortium he chairs and that they all claimed to have not received the rice released by the Customs to specifically alleviate the sufferings of persons with disabilities.
The Consortium, according to Musa, comprises disability communities such as the Southern Nigeria Persons with Disabilities Assembly, the National Association of Persons with Disabilities (FCT/AMAC Chapter), and the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Organization of Persons with Disabilities.
Musa claimed that he and his co-executives swung into action and quickly wrote to the Nigeria Customs Service upon receiving the petitions and that the feedback they received affirmed the release of the said bags of rice to Abba Isa. Musa added that the Customs did not only confirm that the bags of rice were released, but that they also promised to release clothes and other assistive items to the PWDs, to support their living conditions during these hard times.
“So, upon learning of that, we swung into action by writing to Customs, first and foremost, to ask if there was anything of such, and the Customs replied to us and assured us that yes, it was not only rice that they promised the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President, but that they promised them clothes and other assistive devices.
“But that so far, because of the subsidy removal and its effects on Nigerians most especially persons with disabilities who either lost their sources of livelihood or do not have the strength and capacity to go out and fend for themselves, they have graciously decided to give out 1000 bags of rice to the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President to distribute to Nigerians with disabilities, and these 1000 bags are 50kg bags,” Musa stated.
He said that they later began their investigation and discovered that 500 bags out of the 1000 bags of rice released had been sold off and that the proceeds were paid into a Zenith Bank account linked to the Office of the SSAP, adding that the remaining 500 bags were rebagged into 10kg bags and distributed to some persons with disabilities.
In the heat of the allegations, the Nigeria Customs Public Relations Officer, Abdullahi Aliyu Maiwada, a Chief Superintendent of Customs, was contacted at his office to clear the air, and he stated emphatically that he had no knowledge of the release of rice to anyone. He maintained that the Nigeria Customs would never embark on such humanitarian services without involving the press and general public, and added that the Customs halted the direct distribution of rice and other commodities to vulnerable members of the society after one of such attempts led to a stampede. He however said that the new strategy adopted in distributing the commodities is to release them to churches, mosques, and other organizations that interface directly with the people.
“We are not distributing rice. If we have the rice, we distribute it. I’m not aware of the Customs distributing rice to the Presidency. I don’t have that record. I’m not aware of that. It’s not to my knowledge, and I don’t know,” said Maiwada, in response to the poser on whether the Nigeria Customs Service officially or unofficially handed any bags of rice to the SSAP to distribute to PWDs.
To buttress the claims already made by Comrade Musa about the office of the SSAP receiving the said bags of rice, Donald Unanka, founder of the Potter’s Gallery and one of those who had accompanied Comrade Musa to the Customs Headquarters to enquire about the fate of the rice, insisted that the Customs did hand over 1000 bags of 50kg rice to Abba Isa, and that an Assistant Comptroller of Customs (ACG) whose name was not mentioned, came down to address them during their visit and affirmed to them that the bags of rice were actually handed over to Abba Isa.
“I represented my own organization during our visit to the Customs Headquarters in Abuja. So when we got to the Customs, one of the ACGs had to come down to us because the office was not accessible to us, it was upstairs. So the man came down and confirmed to us that Abba Isa got a release of 1000 bags of 50kg foreign rice. Yes! And that there is one other thing that they promised that they had not fulfilled which is clothes.
“They also promised him some consignment of clothes, but that the papers they released to him carried 1000 bags of rice. And the man asked us why we were asking for that information, and we said it was for the purpose of accountability, to know how we can track the distribution of the rice,” disclosed Unanka
In a bid to find out from Abba Isa if the allegations leveled against him were true, several calls were put across to him through his private MTN line, but he did not pick any of them, nor did he respond to the text message sent to him. Then at about 9:00pm of the same day that the calls were made to him, he called back this journalist and insulted the living daylight out of him. He even threatened to destroy the journalist and dared him to go ahead with the publishing of the “unfounded allegations.”
“You are stupid! You want to tarnish the image of a man in the Presidency? You call me to tell me this rubbish? I will destroy you! I will arrest you,” was all that Abba Isa had to say in response to the question asked him about the veracity or otherwise of the allegations leveled against him.
He afterward sent a text message to this journalist in Hausa language which read, “Kachi durun uwarka,” translated in English to mean, “Go and f*ck your mother!”
In a further attempt to give Abba Isa and his office an opportunity to say his own side of the story, Abba Isa’s Chief of Staff, Barrister Yusuf Iyodo, was contacted, and he affirmed through a WhatsApp message that the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Special Needs and Equal Opportunities received the said 1000 bags of rice and that the distribution of the rice had already commenced.
He denied the allegations that 500 bags of the rice were sold to some rice merchant but claimed that 87 bags were destroyed by water. When asked to produce evidence to support his claim that some of the bags of rice got damaged, he said:
“Please disregard that information, it is not important for you. No need. That information does not exist because it does not concern you. I only said that to you by the way. We are not making case with it.”
Meanwhile, Comrade Musa had earlier alleged that 60 out of the 1000 bags of rice had initially been handed over to a senior aide to Abba Isa as his own share of the booty, an allegation that was also denied by Barr. Iyodo.
“We learned that a top aide to the SSAP was also allocated 60 bags of the said rice. That is something that we are still investigating. But graciously, some staff of the Office of the SSAP tried to justify the selling of part of the rice which there are no figures attached to, like how much was each one sold? What was the reason for it being sold? And again, the main issue is ‘why are other zones not being given?’” stated Musa.
Musa further disclosed that Barrister Iyodo had claimed, during their interrogation and investigation, that an undisclosed number of bags of rice were sold off to cover logistical and security costs as some police escorts were attached to the trailer that transported the rice from Lagos to Abuja.
Musa then asked why the portions of rice meant for the disability communities in the South-West, South-East, and South-South regions were not at once removed from the 1000 bags in Lagos and distributed to them since those regions are closer to Lagos than Abuja.
“What is mind-boggling and laughable is when a response from the office of the SSAP came and said that they sold some of the bags of rice to pay certain bills of conveying the rice from Lagos to Abuja, that they paid the security personnel that would protect the rice from Lagos.
“So, one wonders ‘if the rice is from Lagos, why wouldn’t the portion meant for the South-West be removed and given to them there? Why wouldn’t the SSAP’s office find it right to remove the portion of the South-South and given to them? Why didn’t the SSAP’s office remove the portion that was meant for the South-East and given to them?” queried Musa.
Musa’s grievance is majorly premised on the fact that Abba Isa, who is himself a person with disability, and who was supposed to be sympathetic to the plights and sufferings of his fellow persons with disabilities, decided to cheat his co-comrades.
“Part of the reason they are agitating is, if one of them who is said to be representing them in government could do this to them, one can only wonder ‘what about those that are not persons with disabilities?’ One wonders if he is happy to see persons with disabilities begging for cups of rice to eat,” said Musa in a rather hysterical tone.
Musa and his co-agitators have expressed their utter resolve to pursue their investigation to a logical conclusion and petition the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Inspector General of Police at the end of their fact-finding mission.
Asked if they are not scared of legal action being taken against them by the man they are accusing, Donald Unanka said:
“Let him go to court! If he says that he did not sell the rice, he will also prove to us that he did not sell it. He is a public officer. Even if he lies, his account for that month will not lie. For the purpose of public investigation, even if he lies, his account statement will not lie.
“So, it’s good he goes to court. In fact, if he goes to court, it makes the matter very easy. Let the engagement be formal. If he has enough courage, let him go to court.”
Now, another major allegation being pushed by Comrade Musa and his co-agitators is that the remaining bags of rice that were not sold were rebagged into 10kg bags and distributed to pockets of persons in the Federal Capital Territory and Nasarawa State. The 10kg bags that were used for the rebagging were branded with images of President Bola Tinubu, a move that Comrade Musa thinks is politically motivated and intended to impress the president.
Musa further alleged that all the bags of rice distributed so far by Abba Isa in the FCT and Nasarawa do not amount to even a hundred, and queried the authenticity of Abba Isa’s claim of distributing bags of rice to hundreds of persons with disabilities in the two states mentioned. He stated that the Office of the SSAP claimed to be distributing bags of rice to the North-Central states but ended up handing bags of rice to only a very few persons.
“It was in Karu local government area of Nasarawa State where it was said that they’ll distribute bags of rice to the North-Central states, but I couldn’t find the representatives of Plateau State, I couldn’t find representatives of Benue State, I couldn’t find representatives of Kwara State, I couldn’t find representatives of Kogi State, and I couldn’t find representatives of Niger State.
“I saw only one person from Nasarawa who was not given even up to three bags of the 10kg rice. So, he couldn’t have been given the entire Nasarawa State portion of the rice,” said Musa.
But in an attempt to debunk Comrade Musa’s claim that only a handful of persons with disabilities were handed the 10kg bags of rice, Barr. Iyodo insisted that the rebagged rice was distributed to 1000 beneficiaries at the Airport Road in Abuja, and that 1000 beneficiaries also received 10kg bags of rice at Karu, in Nasarawa State.
To further buttress his claims that the rice was widely distributed to thousands of beneficiaries across the country, Barr. Iyodo provided some photographs of the widely-publicized distribution of 10kg bags of rice to persons with disabilities in Yobe State. He claimed that the number of persons who received the bags of rice at Yobe was 1000 and that apart from the rice, they also got cartons of noodles and some cash to cover their transport fares.
Again, Iyodo claimed that his boss and three other members of his team had to fly to Lagos at least twice while negotiating for the release of the rice and that so much money was spent to cover the costs of flight, accommodation, and feeding for the four of them. But to Iyodo’s claims, Comrade Musa has continued to ask if it was just for covering the costs of air tickets, feeding, and accommodation that 500 whole bags of 50kg rice were sold. Musa insists that the 31 million naira that was realized from the sale of the 500 bags of rice couldn’t have all been expended for the above-mentioned purposes and that there was more to the entire story.
Again, Barr. Iyodo insisted that there were other additional costs incurred while still transporting the rice to Abuja from Lagos, such as the payments made to laborers to load the rice into the trailer at Lagos and to offload them at Abuja, and the costs of renting a warehouse for the storage of the rice and hiring local security men to watch over the rice when the trailer conveying it broke down at Ilorin. He added that the local security men spent 9 straight days guarding the rice at the spot where the trailer broke down and that they were adequately rewarded for their job. He declined to provide any evidence to support all the claims he made above.
At the moment, Comrade Musa and his co-agitators are already gearing up to petition the EFCC and the IGP on the said allegations, and they intend to get to the root of the matter for the sole reason of fighting corruption and holding political office-holders accountable for their stewardship.
Asked if he has any interests in all of this, Comrade Musa stated that ironically, he even shares a cordial relationship with the accused, but that that will not deter him from pursuing what he considers as a just cause.
As it stands now, Comrade Musa has brought forward three questions that he insists the SSAP must answer to completely exonerate himself from the allegations leveled against him, and the three questions are: (1) Was 31 million naira, proceeds of the sale of 500 bags of the 50kg rice handed to the SSAP to distribute to persons with disabilities across the country, paid into the Zenith Bank account of the SSAP or not? (2) Were 60 bags out of the 1000 bags of 50kg rice given to a top aide of the SSAP as his own share of the booty or not? And (3) Were certain zones of the country shortchanged in the distribution of the rice or not?
Comrade Musa has maintained that unless the above questions are answered, he and his co-agitators will not stay silent, but will continue to agitate until justice is served to whomever deserves it.
This story was supported by the Civic Media Lab.