A fantastic fraud was crucified at a Bolton Crown Court this week, a metaphor of Britain’s moral madness. The story, delicious in every detail, illustrates the moral dilemma the West, the Good News now a footnote in its history, continues to be mired in as it reverses the natural order of biology, making a man’s interest in another man’s privates the cornerstone of public policy. It so happened that while some Nigerians struggled to get past Gatwick, one Saheed Azeez, now 33, wowed British Immigration with a salacious story of state persecution on account of his “sexual preference,” and won asylum with the speed of light. Boko Haram was after him because he was gay, but it was the government playing a game!
You see, the Nigerian Government wanted to harvest his head at Ogun’s shrine, and had marked out his intestines for transatlantic commerce. The persecution was intense: the DSS laid a siege to his flat, the Chief of Army Staff lined up snipers by his fence, and a frantic search for number plates owned by members of his family was coordinated by the Inspector General of Police. The National Intelligence Agency anchored the robust response to his international collaborators while the EFCC, ferreting out every detail, marked every financial transaction conducted in his name in red ink. By the time he was done, sweating and panting like Benjamin Benjamin of the One man, one machete fame, the British assessors needed multiple handkerchiefs. Just how could sub-Saharan Africa be so crude and cruel, staging a civil war against a fine citizen on account of such a core human right as sexual preference? Who had Azeez hurt? Such cruelty!
I imagine that when he visited home the panegyrics were profuse: the boys he had left behind in Lagos wanted a fast cut. And so they hailed him right into the skies: “File fun (Give it to him!) Alaye nla (big man of influence), Seedo Sahidi ! Breakfast in Aso Rock, lunch in Washington, dinner with Dangote! Step on me; I’m your human carpet. Give your boys something!” And the Agba Saheed (Big Saheed), drunken with the adulations, rolled out crisp pound and dollar notes, “declaring” (demonstrating wealth) for his pals with gusto! The dance that night at Lagos clubs was mad, wine flowing with brutality as the demons of night flushed millions down the drain! Lap dancers threw him rich apples; hypemen spoke of his generosity, and co-clubgoers feted his free-giving.
Back in Britain, keeping the British government in its illusions, Agba Saheed continued his elaborate scam, three baby mamas behind him while pretending to be gay and UK-proud. I hand over the microphone to the prosecutors: Saheed Azeez masterminded a £220,000 parcel fraud scam. Having created a network of strangers, the Big Man used their homes to receive parcels from online sellers who had dispatched their goods before receiving payment. Azeez “would then collect the products, bought on websites including eBay and Facebook Marketplace, and sell them via his brother’s electrical shop in Wigan, before taking a cut and passing on some of the profits to his fellow fraudsters using Bitcoin.”
Trust the prosecutors to grumble that “up to 272 victims lost a total of £220,000 after being persuaded to send out second-hand items, including smartphones and cameras, they were hoping to sell.” The scam took place between September 2020 and November 2021 after Agba Saheed created a removals company, providing ‘‘delivery services’’ for online fraudsters who used Nigerian phones to defraud Facebook Marketplace and eBay users. Of course, his counsel, Ms Chloe Fordham, had a powerful alibi: the suspect continues to be gay and proud of it, only that “he now considers to himself to be bisexual.” In any case, “his role in the fraud wasn’t sophisticated and he only received a small percentage of the profits. And he fears deportation “more than anything.” Prophets, warned Soyinka in The trials of Brother Jero, do not like to be frightened.
Had Saheed Azeez joined politics, he could have been in the Green Chamber now riding an armoured SUV and helping to repatriate funds stolen from the Mother Continent: reparation is a moral imperative. Alas, like our chief wordsmith, Lasisi Olagunju, said of billionaire kidnapper Evans, our subject lacked the wisdom to join politics. But of course he is only a metaphor: just like he does, the cast of crooks we call governors rob the populace with Luciferic consistency, promising top jobs for thousands in Europe’s biggest companies. You may be a thief arrested by the Metropolitan Police with sacks of stolen cash, but you will still rule the souls of the poor, consigning them to degradation with promises faker than a forged certificate. The basest of us rule us with elections stolen with the rustle of currency notes; the electoral commission is a curse.
The auguries are of course portentous, as the Hague Institute for Innovative Law told us only on Thursday: the rule of law and justice in Nigeria is in decline. Sam Muller, the Chief Executive Officer of HiiL, noted that the situation, pinpointed by the World Justice Project’s 2023 report, was depressing for people who woke up everyday to build a nation where peace and justice should reign. But justice is one thing, survival quite another: the streets are replete with fish sellers lamenting the loss of a civilization.
Azeez Saheed scammed scoffers who no longer believe in biology. Enough of the crocodile tears, please. But that’s by the way. He could have emerged governor this week if he had joined politics; who knows? Why didn’t this man join politics? He must be quartered for his crudity!
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Re: Niger gov needs help
Thank you for your piece titled above in the Saturday Tribune edition of 11/11. The blind can see and the deaf can hear the shallow thoughts of the Niger State Governor, Umaru Bago. It exposed his intellectual poverty. It is hard for any right-thinking compatriot to have a modicum of respect for such leaders who think bullying is tantamount to good governance. He sees his office as a place where he can “shout orders” and any zombie will obey with alacrity. Niger State under his watch cannot witness any appreciable progress, but regression. Evidence: He is obscenely profligate, temperamental, and lacks quality knowledge about what good governance ought to be. To repeat your fitting description of him: “What a damnable cast of crooks we have as governors!” Kindly keep exposing their idiocy through your incisive writing. Yacoob Abiodun: 08103501024.
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