Nigeria is buffeted by all sorts of international issues. The issues border on international relations, given that Nigerians are held in some countries or have been taken from others and brought into the country for trial. Separatist leaders, Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho, were arrested in countries other than Nigeria. But their offence was allegedly committed in Nigeria. Kanu was arrested in Kenya and brought home to face trial for a three-count charge, which began over three years ago before he escaped from the country after his life was said to be under severe threat. He is now in Nigeria but lawyers say the process that brought him home runs against the grain of international law. While the Igboho and Kanu matters involve largely African counties, one matter involves the United States of America, where Ramon Abbas, aslo known as Hushpuppi, is reported to have pleaded guilty to multiple financial crimes, including money laundering, in a court in the U.S. One of those he has allegedly named to have received bribes from him was top Nigerian cop, Abba Kyari, who, until recently, headed the Intelligence Response Unit set up by the Inspector-General of Police.
Some details of the matter are that Hushpuppi, 37, is known for posting his lavish lifestyle on social media, with particular reference to Instagram, where he has over 2.5 million followers. Court documents filed in California show that Hushpuppi’s crimes cost victims almost $24 million or £17 million. In one scheme, he was alleged to have attempted to steal more than $1 million from someone who wanted start a new children’s school in Qartar. He reportedly pleaded guilty to the charge on April 20, 2021. Court documents showed that, between January 18, 2019, and June 9, 2020, Hushpuppi and others targeted multiple victims and laundered the illicit funds in banks all over the world. Hushpuppi was arrested in Dubai, where he lived, in June 2020. Ramon, who lived large with exotic cars and private jet, would have carried the weight of his crime alone but for the alleged involvement of Abba Kyari, who allegedly collected bribes in order to ‘deal with’ one of Hushpuppi’s accomplices who wanted to be ‘smart.’
The story is that the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of Carlifornia, had issued a warrant of arrest gainst Kyari for his alleged role in the case, given that Ramon has allegedly confessed to giving him bribes. The IGP has suspended the Kyari, who had acquired the reputation of a supercop on social media, and set up a committee to interrogate him and investigate the matter. Lots of questions arise from the matter.
Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, had become so popular that some of his admirers had begun to see him as a future IGP. He had cracked many cases, including alleged kidnap kingpins such as Evans. He has a penchant for hogging the limelight. He would post how his team arrested tough criminals, and even pose for pictures with the arrested criminals. He became a celebrity of sorts, attending high-society parties and the rest.
He would have a heavy fall, if he is found guilty. The bigger the head, the bigger the headache. There may well be scores of policemen who have cracked many crimes without hogging the klieg light. They are satisfied with delivering on their job. Kyari had become a lamp lit on a hill and could not be hidden. He had denied complicity on the matter but he has not denied contact with Hushpuppi. He has already spoken to the team set up to investigate the matter. We shall await the verdict of the team. But legal pundit, Femi Falana, SAN, has said that the Federal Bureau of Invstigation (FBI) would get Kyari, irrespective of what happens here. We await further developments. We shall see how Nigeria would wriggle out the several international relations entanglements it has found itself in.
If Kyari committed the alleged offence, where should he be tried, given that it was committed in Nigeria? In the hypothetical result that the matter results in jail terms, where would the offender serve? Under whose law would he be tried? The Nigerian government has set up a committee to determine the veracity of the allegation in order for the Attorney-General to determine if Kyari should be extradited to the U.S. for trial. These seem to be due processes but it runs in contra distinction with the reported abduction of Kanu from Kenya, and the denial of that country’s government that it knew about what happened. The complicity of his being a British citizen seems to compound the matter. No one yet knows the reaction of that government about the abduction of its citizen from another county.
Igboho was caught in Benin Republic and Nigeria wants him tried on home soil for charges not yet mentioned. In my layman’s point of view, these issues are complicated such as make them legal puzzles. There may well be legal ways of wriggling out of the puzzle. These things have a backlash on the nation’s international relations. Nigeria had done this in the past when Umaru Diko was drugged in a gestapo style and almost sent home as a parcel in 1984 but for the vigilance of British security at the airport, where they found that a human being was on the verge of being ‘crated’ to Nigeria via the defunct Nigeria Airways from London.
That was how Umaru Dikko was rescued from what I would describe as official kidnap. It was alleged that a former Israeli intelligence agency staff was in the thick of the planning and execution of the botched kidnap of Umaru Diko, who was alleged to have embezzled $1 million. Time vindicated him as he later returned to Nigeria as a free man. Those who perpetrated that evil received prison sentences in Britain. It was the zeal and desire to rid the country of corruption and corrupt politicians that would have precipitated such an illegal action. It would seem that government has not repented of its illegal ways, which may be why the execution of Kanu’s arrest was now planned and executed outside Britain.
However, I do not understand or support the move by Kanu’s followers and the organization he heads insisting that his kinsmen in the South East must shut down their businesses every Monday, until he is released. I think they should leave that to his lawyers and desist from inflicting pain and hardship on their kinsmen.