Yayale Ahmed’s ‘palpable integrity’

By Nosa Osaigbovo

THE Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) celebrated Mahmud Yayale Ahmed’s ‘palpable integrity’ on March 13 in Abuja.

The ICPC wrote in the newspaper advertisement announcing the event: ‘ICPC recognises the Icon of Service Delivery, Alhaji (Dr.) Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, CFR (The Agiyan Katgun), The Head of Civil Service of the Federation as a worthy guest on the March 2007 edition of the Chairman’s Guest Forum in recognition and celebration of consistent and palpable integrity.’

I did not know that the ICPC was in the business of iconography. It was my impression that it was set up to show the irreverence of an iconoclast, to shun hagiography and haul up corruption suspects before judges.

Alhaji Ahmed gave a speech that supported his canonisation by the ICPC, that stamped him as a living saint. In the prepared speech entitled ‘Public Perspective on Anti-Corruption Crusade and Promotion of Integrity’, the head of service stated that he had always given honest service.

A crook tried to corrupt him by offering a bribe of $500,000. Alhaji Ahmed said in awe: ‘I saw dollars’, but the upright head of service was not tempted, not even for a second. He knew it was not right to accept a bribe. His father did not have to tell him it was wrong to be dishonest, as many people usually claim. Alhaji Ahmed knew it himself. He said it was his principle not to count a bribe: ‘My principle is that anything that is not mine, I don’t count it.’ Some policemen count the money they extort from bus drivers while others quickly pocket it.

How did Alhaji Ahmed know that the bribe was $500,000? And why was he offered the bribe he said he firmly, brusquely rejected? And did the ICPC’s man of ‘palpable integrity’ report the bribe-bearing man or woman to the Commission or to the police?

Rejecting the hefty bribe was very admirable of the head of service. He is, according to his speech, not rich. He owned three plots of land in Abuja but did not have the money to develop even one of them. He put one of the plots up for sale to get money to develop the remaining two but the Abuja land authorities revoked his certificates of ownership before he could get a buyer. All the three plots were seized from the head of service in one fell, stunning swoop.

But what did the head of service need three plots for? How was he, a man of moderate means, according to him, able to pay for the plots? Plots cost almost the earth in Abuja. Did he take a bank loan to pay for the plots? President Olusegun Obasanjo’s spokespersons said he took a N2 billion bank loan to transform his Ota farm that had become a virtual dust bowl into an Edenic greenery. They did not produce the smallest shred of documentary evidence in support of their claim, making the bank loan mythical. If the head of service took a bank loan to purchase the plots, he should publish the documents to further solidify his claim to integrity.

It seems Alhaji Ahmed hates taking bank loans. Five banks came begging him to take their loans but he told them politely that it was his principle not to be a borrower. The banks had got to know that the head of service needed N350 million to buy his official residence. They knew that as a man of conspicuous integrity, he would not have that kind of money. (Alhaji Ahmed himself said N350 million would turn a large party of his village into a glittering city). So the banks swarmed his office to beg him to take the cash. But the brilliant Alhaji Ahmed saw through them. He knew they meant to sting him. He pealed off the few, thin layers covering their obligingness and revealed their hard-nosed business calculations. They knew he had no way of repaying the loan and that the house would eventually be theirs.

The newspapers quoted Alhaji Ahmed as saying that the sale of federal government houses in Abuja was not done in an open, honest manner. What is Mallam Nasir el-Rufai’s response to the head of service’s allegation? Will he dismiss it as an attempt to smear his name because he revoked Alhaji Ahmed’s certificates of ownership? Mallam el-Rufai has been accused of official corruption before but he made no attempt, as far as I know, to demolish the allegations. But he enjoys accusing others of corruption and was vaguer than an unfortunate victim of Alzheimer’s disease when summoned to substantiate one of the allegations.

Alhaji Ahmed’s houseboy once made a very serious allegation against him. Alhaji Ahmed was a permanent secretary at the time. The houseboy sued him for millions of naira. He said he had been beaten and tortured by Alhaji Ahmed and his agents for allegedly stealing his money.

The houseboy told the court that it was true he knew where Alhaji Ahmed kept his money. He said he could not help knowing where the money was kept as the banknotes fought for space like chickens in a small, poorly ventilated coop. He said they were foreign currencies, American dollars and British pounds.

Could the houseboy have been mistaken? After all, Alhaji Ahmed had said at the ICPC Chairman’s Guest Forum on March 13 that, ‘as the Head of Service I saw dollars.’ This gives the impression that he did not know what a dollar bill looked like until he became head of service of the federation. And the first dollar bill he ever saw must have come from the $500,000 that was offered to him as a bribe. After all, the head of service, unlike some ministers, is not paid in dollars.

The houseboy stuck to his claim that it was foreign currencies that Alhaji Ahmed allegedly kept under his bed. For a houseboy, he was self-possessed, though he claimed he had no possessions as he had not stolen his employer’s money.

I do not recall that Alhaji Ahmed was in court. He may have been represented by counsel. When President Obasanjo appointed Alhaji Ahmed as the head of service, a newspaper editorialised that his promotion should be reversed. It drew the president’s attention to the suit Alhaji Ahmed’s houseboy had brought against him.

Alhaji Ahmed assumed duties and the suit was not mentioned again. What happened? Did the press stop reporting the case? Did the houseboy withdraw the suit? If he did, why? Was it because he had lied on oath against his former employer, tricked into doing so by a bunch of bent permanent secretaries uncomfortable with Alhaji Ahmed’s ‘palpable integrity’ and envious of his ‘rising profile’, as politicians put it?

Did somebody frighten the houseboy into withdrawing the suit? Was he paid to withdraw it? Where is the houseboy today?

Was the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission unaware that Alhaji Ahmed, its man of ‘palpable integrity’, had been accused by his houseboy of keeping bulging bags of foreign currencies under his bed and of pummelling him?

The ‘Icon of Service Delivery’ did not know or did nothing when one permanent secretary was delivering billions of naira of public money into his private bank accounts.