PREMIUM TIMES
In the past one week, Abubakar Sambo has been battling to save the image of his company, AMA Business Solutions — an Abuja-based Bureau De Change firm that is in the middle of an extortion and bribery scandal involving some members of Nigeria’s House of Representatives.
The 44-year-old businessman sat down with PREMIUM TIMES for a tell-all interview, revealing how an agent of the lawmakers and a university vice-chancellor used his business as a vessel for the scheme. The interview provided more details corroborating our reports on the scandal.
Mr Sambo said his company fell victim to being used as a vessel for the shady deal because he was ignorant of the questionable undercurrent of the transaction. The deal involves an ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives receiving bribes from vice-chancellors of Nigerian federal universities and shaking down the unwilling ones among the heads of the country’s higher institutions of learning.
A PREMIUM TIMES investigation had revealed how the House Committee, set up to probe alleged corruption in the personnel recruitment process of federal agencies, launched an extortion ring to collect bribes and shake down unwilling officials.
The report exposed how some vice-chancellors of universities agreed to pay N2 million bribe to the committee through Mr Sambo’s account domiciled at Providus Bank.
“There was no reason to suspect anything” – Sambo
When Mr Sambo’s phone rang on 16 August, the name that popped up on the screen could not be ignored because it was from a very important client — Stella Adoga.
Ms Adoga is not a social caller. She works for Lead British International School (LBIS), a big, privately-owned secondary school in Abuja, Nigeria’s political capital. By the time they ended their brief telephone conversation, Mr Sambo was upbeat, looking forward to hearing from a man whom Ms Adoga had said would call to buy dollars.
“She (Stella) called me and said that there was one of their clients that wanted to buy dollars,” Mr Sambo said. “She said she would give them my number. That’s a referral—which is very normal in our business.”
What Mr Sambo did not know was that Ms Adoga equally works for Oluwole Oke, the proprietor of LBIS and member of the House of Representatives.
“There was no reason to suspect anything,” Mr Sambo said while showing this reporter other transactions between him and LBIS.
Further narrating his experience, the businessman explained that hours after the call from Ms Adoga, he was contacted via WhatsApp by a man who introduced himself as Professor Tanko Ishaya, who said that he got his contact from “Stella (Adoga) from the National Assembly”, and would like to know the rates of naira to dollar, and naira to pounds sterling.
The professor later requested the account number of Mr Sambo with the understanding that he would send him money in naira which he would like to convert to dollars. He was given Account Number 5400495458, domiciled in Providus Bank.
Mr Sambo noted that he got a stab of surprise when he started getting credit alerts of N2 million from different sources. He raised his concerns with the two individuals involved; they assured him that the payments were from an association and that the payment to him was structured in that manner.
“Good morning sir, they are sending the money in N2 million tranches,” Mr Sambo had in a WhatsApp message informed the UNIJOS vice-chancellor of the unusual inflow of the funds into his account. His concern was not addressed, he said.
“Normally, if a customer is buying dollars, they pay you bulk money. So it was surprising to me, that was why I indicated it to him (Mr Ishaya) in the WhatsApp message,” Mr Sambo told this reporter.
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