Ambassador Campbell’s Curious Defense of Buhari’s Corrupt Aso Rock Cabal
Farooq A. Kperogi
Saturday, July 4, 2020
Ambassador Campbell’s Curious Defense of Buhari’s Corrupt Aso Rock Cabal
Dr. John Campbell, America’s former ambassador to Nigeria from May 2004 to July 2007, wrote a June 24 opinion article titled “Nigerian Media’s Unsubstantiated Claims that U.S. Agencies Investigating Corruption by Buhari's Inner Circle” for the Council on Foreign Relations (where he works as a Senior Fellow for Africa policy studies) that was basically a puzzlingly evidence-free whitewashing of Buhari and his corrupt cabal.
Campbell impeached the credibility of a Pointblanknews.com report that said the US State Department is probing Sabiu 'Tunde' Yusuf, Sarki Abba, Mamman Daura, Ismaila Isa Funtua (and his son Abubakar Funtua) for money laundering in the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom by claiming that it is “rare for the Department of State or the Department of Justice to say that there is an investigation underway, and neither has done so publicly.”
Campbell is a veteran of the US Department of State, so I defer to his judgement on the credibility of the Pointblanknews.com report. But he went beyond questioning the authenticity of the money laundering report to doing outright image laundering for the cabal.
He said, “Sabiu 'Tunde' Yusuf is known to be very rich, and Nigerian money laundering in the Gulf and the United Kingdom is an old song. President Muhammadu Buhari appears to have little personal interest in money, lives simply, and is rarely accused of personal corruption. But that his inner circle is corrupt is a widely held trope in southern Nigeria.”
That’s a curiously tendentious assertion. First, Sabiu “Tunde” Yusuf was, until 2015, a poor recharge card seller. How did he become “known to be very rich” just five years after being a personal assistant to Buhari, his mother’s uncle? Campbell left that part out and made it seem like Yusuf, who is only in his 30’s, had always been rich.
Yusuf unquestionably became rich from serving in Buhari’s government. Since his legitimate monthly earning is lower than 350,000 naira (which is less than $1,000), it is impossible for him to be “known to be very rich” through means other than corruption.
Second, it is inaccurate that Buhari has “little personal interest in money, lives simply, and is rarely accused of personal corruption.” Campbell is merely regurgitating the pre-2015 propaganda Buhari’s campaign caused to be circulated in Nigeria and abroad, but which is now the source of derision in Nigeria in light of what people now know of Buhari.
It’s wholly untrue that Buhari lives simply. The first major project Buhari executed upon becoming president in 2015 was to build a multi-million-naira vanity helipad for his exclusive use in his hometown of Daura, which would be useless after his presidency. Not even Goodluck Jonathan who got a lot of hell from civil society groups for corruption built a helipad for himself in his hometown of Otueke.
Additionally, Buhari’s penchant for going to London to treat even his littlest illnesses (including an ear infection that had already been treated in Nigeria), his high-priced sartorial excesses, and his fondness for extortionately elaborate red-carpet ceremonies each time he leaves the country and returns to it do not square with the profile of a person who “lives simply.”
And contrary to Campbell’s claim, Buhari has been accused of personal corruption since the 1970s. He was the subject of a popular song by the iconic Fela Anikulapo Kuti because he couldn’t account for 2.8 billion naira of NNPC funds when he was petroleum minister in the 1970s. He was also accused of stealing billions of naira when he headed the Petroleum Trust Fund in the 1990s.
Of course, being accused of something isn’t synonymous with being guilty of it. Nevertheless, although all of Nigeria’s past presidents and heads of state have been accused of corruption, none has been convicted of it. Not even the late General Sani Abacha whom Buhari said never stole any money from Nigeria (but whose recovered “loot” is being perennially repatriated by foreign banks and governments to Nigerian governments, including to Buhari’s regime) has been convicted of corruption.
Buhari also has a history of personally lying in his official capacity to defend the corruption of members of his inner circle. In January 2017, for instance, Buhari signed a letter in his name to the Senate committee that investigated former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir David Lawal for fleecing defenseless people who were internally displaced by Boko Haram terrorists and exonerated him.
In the letter, Buhari told three demonstrably obvious and easily falsifiable lies to defend his appointee. In the midst of undeniable evidence against Lawal, Buhari was later forced to eat humble pie and fire Lawal. But, although he was fired, he hasn’t been convicted to this day. He was, in fact, chairman of Buhari’s reelection campaign in Adamawa State.
Buhari also recalled, reinstated, and promoted a man by the name of Abdulrasheed Maina who had been accused of embezzling billions of naira belonging to pensioners for which he fled the country. After news of this scandal caused national outrage, Buhari reversed it and pretended to be shocked by what had happened.
But a leaked memo to the late Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to Buhari, by then Head of Service, Winifred Oyo-Ita, showed that Buhari was in on the fraud.
“I sought audience with His Excellency, Mr. President on Wednesday, 11th October, 2017 after the FEC meeting where I briefed His Excellency verbally on the wide-ranging implications of the reinstatement of Mr. A. A. Maina, especially the damaging impact on the anti-corruption stance of this administration,” the HoS’s memo said.
Finally, Campbell’s claim that notions of the eyewatering corruption in Buhari’s inner circle are shared only by people in “southern Nigeria” is both astonishingly mendacious and gratuitously divisive.
I am not a southern Nigerian, but I have called attention to the corruption in Buhari’s inner circle in countless columns and social media posts. Buba Galadima, another northerner and former Buhari protégé, has made series of credible allegations of corruption against Buhari and his inner circle.
Junaid Mohammed, a well-regarded Second Republic federal legislator from Kano, has made numerous convincing accusations of corruption against the Buhari regime and its honchos.
Even former Emir of Kano Muhammad Sanusi II said in an August 24, 2016 lecture that the Buhari regime created a situation where influential people could sit in their “garden and make billions through forex market without sweat”—precisely the sort of charge being made against the Aso Rock cabal that Campbell has chosen to defend without counter facts.
A vast multitude of northerners on and off social media chatter endlessly about the stratospheric corruption currently taking place in the Buhari regime. So to suggest that accusations of corruption against members of Buhari’s kitchen cabinet are animated only by unthinking southern regional animus against northerners is outrageous prevarication that is beneath contempt.
More than southerners, northerners see previously dirt-poor people from their region building glitzy mansions and living large after getting appointments in— or being closely aligned to people in— Buhari’s inner circle. They know legitimate earnings from government jobs are not sufficient to fund and sustain the sybaritic lavishness of Buhari’s appointees.
Campbell obviously knows very little about northern Nigeria. For instance, in a March 27, 2020 article for the CFR, he wrote that Abba Kyari was an “Islamic scholar” because the title “Mallam” is often prefixed to his name!
Campbell doesn’t know enough about northern Nigeria to know that “Mallam” has evolved to a mere courtesy title for a man, any man, and functions as an alternative for “Mr.” Perhaps, it is too much to expect a person who thinks people who prefix “Mallam” to their names are Islamic clerics to know that northern Nigerians also rail against the endemic corruption in Buhari’s inner circle.
It is troubling that Campbell used the possible inauthenticity of the claim that members of Buhari’s inner circle are being probed by the State Department to weaken or dismiss the credible allegations of corruption against Buhari and his cabal.
Kennesaw State University
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
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Jimoh Oriyomi
Thank you Prof for this sharp reaction. This regime might claim the top prize in the history of corruption in Nigeria.
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Farooq A. Kperogi
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Cornelius Hamelberg
When on the morning after I saw Sani Abacha’s number 2 man Oladipo Diya on Swedish TV, trembling in chains, I went to the headquarters of Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Gustav Adolfs Torg 1 to see His Excellency Arne Ekfeldt, Sweden’s former Ambassador to Nigeria 1992–1997, I was not altogether surprised about how well he knew Nigeria. He spoke highly of Muhammadu Buhari who he knew personally at Zaria, he told me. I could never have been surprised at how well Michael Crowder knew Nigeria or pressed him to reveal all his sources. I was never surprised about how well the late Björn Beckman knew Nigeria either, nor would I be surprised today at how well informed any UK Ambassador to Nigeria would or should be. Therefore, it should surprise no one that Dr. John Campbell, USA’s Ambassador to Nigeria 2004 -2007 would not be adequately informed about the country in which he served for more than three years. Not even the president of that country or the conglomerate of Nigeria’s intelligence and security services, plus all the soothsayers and surveillance magicians ought to be surprised either.
The former Ambassador’s status as a senior fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations is not in question and there’s surely nothing amiss in his carefully and cautiously worded article “Nigerian Media’s Unsubstantiated Claims that U.S. Agencies Investigating Corruption by Buhari's Inner Circle” which Kperogi painstakingly wants to disembowel as errors of judgement based on false/ fake and mis – information. Maybe Campbell should be dismissed from his position as a senior fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations and replaced by the self-proclaimed more knowledgeable Kperogi, eternally seeking to be of relevance? How about that? Preposterous? Really? Secondly, equally preposterous, maybe, Buhari should be replaced by the attention-seeking, self-promoting Kperogi as democratically elected President of Nigeria?
We could comfortably make the following assumptions and assertions without fear of any serious contradiction or challenge about their strong foundations:
1. It’s clear to see that Campbell likes President Buhari and has his purpose in correcting manifest errors whereas poor Kperogi who as Baba Kadiri says, is fond of making feathers out of chickens, sees nothing good in his Nigerian president.
2. Campbell writes positively about President Buhari once described by the BBC as “ the honest general”; making some personal judgements, Campbell writes about Brother Buhari’s character, his disciplined, Spartan lifestyle etc, whereas like a rogue refugee in America, devoid of honour, patriotism, loyalty and self-esteem, Sheikh Kperogi ‘s main passion consists in finding fault with everything concerning his president of Nigeria, from petty matters such as his president’s pronunciation of COVID 19 , to other trivialities of infinitely less moment; Kperogi does not even spare making libellous statements against Nigeria’s First Lady who he has accused of “attempted murder”
3. Campbell did not ”claim that notions of the eyewatering corruption in Buhari’s inner circle are shared only by people in “southern Nigeria.” What the carefully nuanced Campbell actually said was “But that his (Buhari’s) inner circle is corrupt is a widely held trope in southern Nigeria.” Campbell continues, winding up with this concluding sentence “ In a country where it is commonly believed that half of the population is Christian and half is Muslim, the overwhelmingly Muslim character of the Buhari government encourages those opposed to the president, especially among Christians in the south, to believe that his inner circle is corrupt.” Can’t Kperogi read and understand simple English?
I could examine Kperogi’s usual diatribe more closely – a proper scrutiny, but that would be wasting my own time and giving him the attention that he so desperately craves. Fortunately for him, I’m not prepared to do that with this or any of his earlier or future attention-seeking attempts, but if he insists, I non-commissioned officer Cornelius will do so and at his own peril!
It’s good when you play and the right-hand doesn’t see or care about what the left hand is doing
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Ibrahim Abdullah
On 5 Jul 2020, at 11:25 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Professor Ibrahim Abdullah,
Who knows how many Nigerians including unemployed bums, chauffeurs, electronic engineers, oil block chiefs, writers, scholars – some wittingly or unwittingly in strategic studies, professors, journalists, culture missionaries, big & little grammar teachers, military and economic advisers, politicians, presidents, businessmen, and businesswomen, (NGOs?) are on the CIA payroll? We can only hazard a guess. The lobbying at the UN should give us an idea. But the CIA is not the only game in town. There are others. How many Francophone Diaspora Africans are not working for French Intelligence? One thing that some of them have in common (both the men, the dangerous women, and the transvestites) especially those surprised by themselves at what they consider a special distinction and a higher calling is more than enough arrogance and in some cases the devil’s killer pride. There are also those of course with holes in their jeans.
They say that conspiracy theories feed a psychological need but, in this case, the embassy’s function the taking care of business can be more precisely defined, in the Swedish case at least.
There’s the classic case of Bo Göransson a former head of SIDA who served as Sweden’s Ambassador to Kenya 2003 – 2008. Ideally, Sweden’s Embassy in Nairobi is supposed ”to represent and run Swedish foreign policy, Swedish interests, and values that apply in various business areas such as political and economic relations, development cooperation, trade, and investment promotion, as well as information and culture. It also provides consular services to Swedish citizens and handles migration matters. Operations are conducted bilaterally, through cooperation in the European Union (EU) and within the framework of UN cooperation.”
Bo Göransson was one of my heroes; during his stint in Nairobi he started a moral crusade against corruption and wrote many anti-corruption crusader articles in Daily Nation - it was an impressive crusade against corruption which he said was “ the system” in Kenya. Of course, the Kenyan authorities eventually got irritated with him and protested that he was unnecessarily interfering in their internal affairs (smile). Since Kenya was a recipient of Swedish and EU economic aid, some of which was said to have disappeared into other pockets and not into the projects for which the aid was intended, I’m sure that you too would argue that the donors should have a moral right to fight against that kind of corruption and the magical disappearance of our taxpayers' money into private treasuries.
Awaiting your approval/ endorsement: Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy
Aren’t there some foreign military attaches in Nigeria helping out with counter-terrorism measures, rapid response, etc? There could be many areas of mutual interest, partnership and co-operation but by far, this is the worst case that I’ve heard about, so far:
Making a killing: Israeli mercenaries in Cameroon
BTW I was hoping that you would report to this forum on Paolo Conteh found not guilty of treason by jury. I hope that he will be fined and not have to do time (in this instance, kudos to Abdulai Conteh!)
BTW, I thought that Ambassador Thomas Neil Hull III who was USA’s Ambassador to Sierra Leone 2004 – 2007 did an excellent job running workshops on the value of a free press, and generally keeping an eye on Human Rights issues ….
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (Cornelius Hamelberg
It figures. Have no fear, poetic justice is surely on its way. There’s nothing in Ambassador John Campbell’s quiet, 297-word summation that suggests otherwise or anything to the contrary.
In contrast to that strain of “journalism” in which improbable, highfalutin verbiage and the hyperbolic hype is always so dominant, the beauty/finesse in the Ambassador’s diplomatic jargon, loaded with polite euphemisms , is a welcome relief. I read the innocent words “very rich” as a loaded euphemism with a knowing tinge of irony and innuendo in the sentence that runs, “Sabiu 'Tunde' Yusuf is known to be very rich”. That’s one nice English-speaking gentleman man talking to another at the cocktail party about the guy that they just shook hands with, and both Englishmen, know exactly what is conveyed by the “he is known to be very rich!”
That’s preferable to the usual brutal, guns blazing, always frontal, pedestrian 419er babble that is the standard fare of the Satanic accuser calling his spade a spade and forever shouting ( like a madman) that the spade he sees everywhere is corruption, writ large.
The crass and dull-witted would much prefer that the one said to the other (in a whisper), “It’s a case of from rags to riches. He is known to be very corrupt!”
The virtue of understatement should not be underestimated. It’s a forte not a weakness of the English Language where more often than not, less is more.
”I love you “is a stronger statement than, “I love you very much”. I guess that too is cultural and therefore varies from place to place, from Westminster to Abuja, from Boston Massachusetts to the skyscraper view from Atlanta, Georgia.
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