NIGERIANS were left utterly bewildered last week when the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) declared the erstwhile commander of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) at the Force Intelligence Bureau of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), DCP Abba Kyari, wanted over a 25kg drug deal. And their shock was quite understandable: DCP Kyari, arguably the most celebrated young police officer in the country in recent memory, was already in the eye of the storm over his indictment by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) over his involvement in one of the international fraud cases of the Instagram celebrity and billionaire scammer, Raymond Abbas, a.k.a Hushpuppi. The details of Kyari’s involvement in the $1.1 million fraud case, one of the audacious fraud schemes perpetrated by the famed Billionaire Gucci Master, are gripping, and Kyari’s suspension by the Police Service Commission (PSC) following the FBI indictment was really inevitable. But then, to hear that while on suspension, Kyari had attempted to pull off yet another stunning fraud case, this time involving drugs, was befuddling!
According to the two statements issued by the NDLEA, Kyari had, on January 21, rang up an NDLEA officer in Abuja, informing him that there was a need to discuss “an operational matter”. As it turned out, however, Kyari was actually intending to co-opt the officer and his men into an elaborate drug deal. Kyari’s team had intercepted and arrested some traffickers who came into the country from Ethiopia with 25kg of cocaine, and he and his team had already taken 15 kg of the consignment, shared at an 8:7 ratio between them and the informants that gave the information leading to the seizure. Hence, he proposed that the NDLEA should take the remaining 10kg, sell off half and retain the other half for the prosecution of the suspects arrested with the illicit drug in Enugu. In the meantime, the purloined cocaine would be replaced with a dummy worth 15kg. Apparently not willing to let the NDLEA men experience undue stress, Kyari offered to help them to sell their allotted portion of 5kg at N7m per kilogramme, making a total of N53 million. In short, he would be delivering $61,400 to the NDLEA team.
As a follow up, Kyari delivered the $61,400 to the NDLEA officer. Unknown to him, however, the officer was only playing along in order to provide evidence with which the agency could nail him. The officer told Kyari that he would prefer to collect the money inside his personal car, which was already wired with sound and video recorders. And so the bubble burst and, on February 14, the agency declared the suspended IRT commander wanted for dealing in hard drugs, following which he and his accomplices, including ACP Sunday J. Ubua, ASP Bawa James, Inspector Simon Agirgba and Inspector John Nuhu were handed over to it by the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). That done, however, the police urged the agency to investigate and prosecute its own officers whom, it said, had been involved in the drug deal. But the NDLEA dismissed the statement as a red herring, declaring that it had no reason to shield anyone who might be indicted in the course of its investigations.
It is indeed disturbing that officers of the law who should take the battle to criminals are taking advantage of the lax moral, ethical and legal climate prevalent in the country to commit unspeakable atrocities, readily colluding with outlaws to wreck the country’s moral fabric. Such criminals masquerading as law enforcement gurus present themselves as agents of change, garnering endless awards for their supposed gallantry, but in reality turning the country into one vast criminal enclave and reaping humongous financial rewards from their dastardly activities. How could a suspended senior police officer have enough institutional latitude not only to continue carrying out the functions of his former office even with another officer in charge of affairs, but also to carry out drug deals? How could Kyari’s employers, the Nigeria Police, unabashedly inform the country that his alleged infractions were committed while he was on suspension? What does that say about the NPF and its ability to enforce its own rules?
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Given how the NPF has handled the Kyari case ab initio, it is indeed fair to ask whether there had been any attempt to make him face the consequences of his alleged dalliance with fraudsters in the first place. According to reports, the initial police report on the indicted officer was tepid and had been rejected by the Police Service Commission (PSC). What factors, therefore, influenced the alleged institutional effort to give Kyari the proverbial “soft landing”? Were there uncomfortable secrets that strict handling of the officer could have revealed? To say the very least, Kyari’s case has now coalesced into a serious commentary on the national conscience. If a super cop honoured by the country’s national legislature quickly turned into a super villain within such a short time, what institutional facade enabled his ascendance in the national scheme of things in the first place? Given the gripping details that have emerged since Kyari’s FBI indictment last year, there is no way he could have been acting alone or without precedent. A comprehensive probe into, and overhaul of, the factors that enabled such elaborate criminality is thus a sine qua non.
Truth be told, this case is symptomatic of what the national leadership has done to the country, making it a laughing stock in the comity of nations. This, apparently, was not the first time Kyari had been involved in such alleged drug deals: a suspended cop could not have been so brazen if not for institutionalised corruption. After Season 1, namely his indictment by the FBI, Kyari moved into Season 2, his NDLEA case. No one knows what lies ahead but one thing is sure: ridding the country of compromised security agents will involve institutional overhaul, not just the prosecution of individual suspects.
and then