The Accidental Public Servant
Page 42
expand its application to other jurisdictions outside the FCT.
After we left office, my expectation that Tanimu Yakubu, then FMBN CEO who became Yar'Adua's
Economic Adviser, would push the process to completion and mainstreaming to cover the rest of the
country, did not materialize. So in spite of our best efforts, Nigeria is yet to put in place a national
mortgage system, and we are all the worse for it.
Challenges Faced and Some Lessons Learnt
The sale exercise had not been without its fair share of problems. Indeed, a project as extensive,
complex and sensitive as this was bound to be problematic, and the FCTA and the Sale
Implementation Secretariat expended great energy to resolving as many of the issues as possible in
the most efficient, transparent and equitable manner possible. Some of the most significant problems
included: the reliance on a flawed and incomplete database of houses in the FCT primarily compiled
by valuation consultants engaged by the SGF and complemented by the efforts of FCTA agencies and
agents; the low level of understanding of the guidelines displayed by career public servants, political
office holders and members of the general public, as well as, the managements of the various MDAs;
delays in the issue of the FMBN bond; pressures from different quarters to modify or manipulate the
guidelines; and the general indiscipline and corruption displayed by some participants in the exercise.
On the eve of the transition to the Yar'Adua administration in 2007, the Sale Secretariat had
successfully transferred legal title in the form of Certificates of Occupancy to 1,500 individuals,
while a further 11,000 were at various levels of processing for C-of-O, having completed payments
on their houses. At the time we handed over, I never anticipated that this exercise would become the
source of the biggest smear on my name and reputation to date - the allegation that "N32 billion was
unaccounted for" under my watch.
The mercenaries in the Senate Committee, FCTA and the Yar’Adua administration were careful not to
accuse anyone of embezzling the money since they knew they were lying, and all the funds were
intact, but, by appropriate “purchase” of newspaper headlines - suggested that I stole the money. I
sued both the National Assembly and the Federal Government when their Finance Minister
discovered N46 billion in 15 bank accounts that my successor-in-office had hidden to prove the
disappearance of the funds. By then, I had in my possession the joint audit report of the Sale of
Houses programme prepared by Akintola Williams Deloitte & Touche and Aminu Ibrahim & Co.,
dated July 2007, confirming that not a penny was missing. [71] The matter is still being argued before
the Federal High Court, with all government agencies doing all they can to delay its closure.
The Justice Bashir Sambo Saga
Perhaps the most publicized controversy arising from the sale of houses programme was the ejection
of Justice Bashir Sambo, in August 2006, from his official residence located at 1, Aso Drive,
Maitama District. At the time the carefully choreographed media war led by the Daily Trust
newspaper was going on, I chose to maintain silence, and just directed the secretariat to take out full-
page adverts explaining what it had done and why. I thought that was the end of it. Sadly, less than a
year later, Justice Sambo, who was chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, died on 29th April
2007 in a Cairo Hospital. He was 76 years old and had been ill for some time. For that reason, I
decided never to join issues with those who thought that the ejection of the deceased jurist was
inappropriate and went as far as suggesting that it caused his 'premature' death. I remained silent
because the man could no longer defend himself if I chose to speak out. I will not go into the detailed
history of the interactions and interlocking relationships between our families or the record of our
previous interactions in the FCT in his role as head of Jama'atu Nasril Islam in Abuja and the Abuja
National Mosque Management Board. These are matters of public record in FCT Administration's
file, with living witnesses and the institutional memory of the public service.
I will simply tell my side of the story on the sale of the house in question, subsequent cancellation,
and the actions that followed naturally with reference only to letters written by Justice Bashir Sambo
himself and other officials in the government. These exchanges of correspondence culminated in my
directives to the Sales Secretariat on 7th July 2006 to eject him immediately from the house in
question because he had by then, become an illegal occupant.
Justice Bashir Sambo was appointed chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) in May 1996
by General Sani Abacha, after a long career in education in the old North Central State and Sharia
Courts of Appeal in Kaduna and the FCT. He was appointed for a second and final five-year term by
President Obasanjo. His term was deemed to have ended in April 2006 or thereabouts. The CCT is
one of the federal executive bodies created by the Constitution to put on trial any political office
holder who abuses his office, including those, like the president, the vice president, the governors and
their deputies, that have immunity while in office. Its decisions are subject to appeal, making it the
equivalent of a High Court. What is unusual about the CCT is that even though it operates as a court
and imposes sanctions including asset seizures and disqualification from holding public office, it is
part of the Presidency and not the Judiciary.
The approved guidelines exempted from sale all houses occupied by judges of superior courts of
record - the Federal High Court, High Court of the FCT, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. The
guidelines were not specific on CCT, National Industrial Court, Sharia Court of Appeal and
Customary Court of Appeal of the FCT. However, since all these but the former were under the
Judiciary, we had no difficulty exempting all their houses from sale. The CCT, being under the
executive branch was treated like other parastatals, and the chairman and justices treated as political
office holders with rights to match open bids for the houses they occupied.
The CCT houses were, therefore, advertised in national newspapers on 2nd September 2005. They
were put on open bid and thereafter, through an offer letter dated October 5, 2005, Sambo along with
one other justice were given up until 19th October to exercise their right to match the bid price by
making a downpayment of 10 percent. In the case of Justice Bashir Sambo, this amounted to
6,525,200 naira. That was when he took steps to lose the opportunity he had to purchase the house he
was occupying. The first wrong step taken by the CCT was to write to FCT complaining that the
chairman and members of CCT were "….not political office holders but judicial officers…." and
demanded similar treatment. When we did not respond, the CCT reported the matter to President
Obasanjo who referred it to us on October 24, 2005 with a benign comment[72] and no directives. In
the circumstance, Justice Bashir Sambo collected his offer letter, and made the first payment on 22nd
November 2005, about a month later than he should.[73] It was nonetheless accepted.
The issue, I suppose for Justice Bashir Sambo, was simple. His neighbours on Aso Drive who were
career public servants were paying a little above N2
0 million for the same house he was being asked
to pay N65 million, and he wanted the same “preferential” treatment. He first visited me to make the
argument that he was a civil servant when the houses were advertised for public bidding in the media.
When I reminded him that the retirement age for civil servants is 60 and he was well over 70 years
old and that his appointment, promotion and discipline were not within the purview of the Federal
Civil Service Commission, he left disappointed and visibly upset. At that point, the CCT came up
with the new argument of their chairman and judges being "judicial officers" and expecting that would
earn them the same treatment as “career public servants.”
Before making the second payment on 19th December 2005, Justice Sambo had sent a petition to the
president making the case that CCT members were "judicial officers" whose houses ought not to have
been put on bid, and should be sold on Current Replacement Cost basis not Open Market Value. The
President referred his petition to me for comment, and sought the legal opinion of the Attorney-
General of the Federation, Chief Bayo Ojo. Obasanjo also sought the views of the Chief Justice,
Justice Mohammed Lawal Uwais, on the status of CCT. Based on the verbal opinions and views he
obtained, the SGF conveyed the decision of federal government to Justice Sambo, to withdraw the
offer made to the CCT judges in a letter, reference 597001/T.9/215, dated 3rd April 2006, and
copied me. I was accordingly directed by Obasanjo to withdraw the offer letter and refund any
monies paid by the chairman and members of the Code of Conduct Tribunal .
Justice Sambo promptly responded to the SGF in a letter dated 4th April 2005, then claiming that (1)
CCT members were not judicial officers (2) he had a subsisting contract with government which must
be respected, as soon as he paid the balance of 80% of the sales price. We wrote on 11th April 2006,
withdrawing the offer and suggesting that another house could be purchased by Sambo. In effect, by
trying to get the house at a cheaper rate, Sambo managed to lose the opportunity to buy the house!
Justice Sambo then wrote an interesting letter to me, dated 18th April, 2006, accusing me of treating
government property as my personal property, rejecting the withdrawal letter sent to him by the Sales
Secretariat, restating that he was NOT a judicial officer, and ending with a statement which would
have invalidated the sale even if there were no other breaches or grounds: "As a matter of fact I have
already sold the house in order to get the money to pay the remaining 80% as others have done."
Justice Sambo then surreptitiously submitted a certified cheque constituting the final payment of
N52,201,600 on 25th April 2006 to the Ad-Hoc Committee to strengthen his mythical contractual
claim. I suppose he thought that the payment would enable him have documents to tender in court in a
future litigation. By then Sambo had retired from public service and 90 days after retirement, he
became an illegal occupant - a trespasser in occupation of government property and liable to ejection
without notice.
Observing Sambo's persistence and capacity for intrigue, I advised Obasanjo to obtain the legal basis
for the decisions in writing and for the Cabinet to formally consider and decide on the status of CCT
vis-a-vis the sale of houses programme. He agreed and requested written briefs from both the AGF
and CJN on the matter. Meanwhile, the two payments collected from Justice Bashir Sambo were
refunded on 16th May 2006 and collected by his assistant, Yahaya Abba. The Committee never
banked the third certified cheque for N52, 201, 600 dated 25th April, so no refund was necessary and
it was simply returned to Yahaya Abba who duly signed for it on the same date.
The Attorney General's legal opinion was conveyed to the SGF in a letter referenced
HAGF/SGF/2006/Vol. 1, dated 16th June 2006. The legal opinion and the CJN's views were
deliberated upon by the Cabinet and a formal decision taken to add CCT's houses to the list of
exempted "essential houses." Meanwhile, Justice Constance Momoh had been appointed the new
chair of CCT, and she was incurring huge hotel bills which were unjustifiable. Having refunded the
monies collected in full to Justice Sambo, and having retired from service in May 2006, he was
considered a trespasser from July 2006 and ejected from the residence after several notices to vacate.
Justice Sambo claimed in the media that he had filed a suit against the FCT, but if he did, we were
never served any processes. I was certainly never personally served as required by the FCT civil
procedure rules. In the end, I think, I decided to leave the judgment of what transpired between
Justice Sambo and I to the Almighty God, knowing that He Knows everything that may be hidden in
the hearts of men. I merely invite readers to peruse all the documents in Appendix 10, and let Sambo's
letters and the opinions of other officials involved in the matter speak for themselves. I had never
commented on this matter before, and will say no more because as lawyers would say – “res ipsa
loquitor”
Chapter Eleven
Restoring the Abuja Master Plan
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that
something else is more important than fear.
~Ambrose Redmoon
It is the action, not the fruit of the action, that is important. You
have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be
in your time, that there will be any fruit. But that does not mean
you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results
come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no
result.
- Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi
President Obasanjo’s passion for Abuja and his concern that it was becoming another Lagos was
certainly one of the reasons behind my appointment to administer the Federal Capital Territory. At the
peak of the ‘silence is the best answer to a fool’[74] controversy, I had cause to ask him why he cared
so much about Abuja and why he was willing to apologise to the Senate to ensure I remained on the
job. He told me a compelling story starting with his tenure as Federal Commissioner (now Minister)
of Works under Gowon.
The government witnessed the demographic explosion of Lagos after the civil war, the impact of the
oil boom from 1973, and the need for the construction of Eko Bridge in Lagos. He spoke of Eko
Bridge being Julius Berger’s first major civil engineering project in Nigeria and the beginning of a
long friendship with the then JBN project engineer Hans Whitman that has remained.
Abuja and Obasanjo - A Touching Story
Obasanjo described the challenges he faced in making Lagos liveable with massive infrastructure
investments eagerly supported by the Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon. However, it was a
losing battle, as Lagos grew faster than the rate of infrastructure build-out necessary to make it work.
Obasanjo had proposed to Gowon a system of ring roads around Lagos, a railway (metro) system,
and ferries to take advantage of its Lagoon and waterways, but the cost was horrendous. That was
when the thought of moving the capital out of Lagos to a brand new location as a solution, began to
form in his mind and Gowon’s. Less than a year later, Obasanjo became one third of the Murtala-
Obasanjo-Danjuma
troika that succeeded General Yakubu Gowon in a bloodless coup on 29 th July
1975.
As Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Obasanjo was not only the equivalent of the vice-president
of Nigeria, but in charge of supervising the governors who administered the twelve states of the
federation, which later rose to 19 states. Obasanjo therefore initiated the debate on the need to
relocate the federal capital from Lagos, and the triumvirate accepted the idea. From that point on, in
what would appear to be a politically astute decision, Obasanjo took the lead in selecting the
members of the panel to study the matter and make recommendations to the government. Obasanjo
ensured that all but two of the members were from southern Nigeria, but knew each would be
objective in assessing the continuous suitability of Lagos as federal and state capital, as well as
administrative and commercial centre of Nigeria. Only two persons from the North – Justice Owen
Feibai based in Jos, and Muhammad Musa Isma[75] from Kano, were members of the Justice Akinola
Aguda Panel. The other members were Dr. Tai Solarin, Col. Monsignor Pedro Martins, Dr. Ajato
Gandonu, and Professor O. K. Ogan. The acceptance of the Justice Akinola Aguda Panel Report led
to the promulgation of the Federal Capital Territory Decree No. 6 in 1976 that created the Federal
Capital Development Authority, charged with the responsibility of planning, developing and
maintaining Abuja as Nigeria’s new capital.
The Pioneers of Abuja
Nine days after signing the decree creating the Federal Capital Territory into law, General Murtala
Mohammed was assassinated in an abortive coup and Obasanjo became Head of State, but his
interest in the Abuja Project did not wane. He appointed Mobolaji Ajose-Adeogun as Minister of
Special Duties in the office of the Head of State to be in charge of the new Federal Capital Territory
project. For day-to-day supervision and control of the project, Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. T Y