A one-time deputy director with the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Osuji Jean-Charles, was reportedly sighted on Wednesday at the Minna Hiltop mansion of former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, where he had gone to felicitate with the former head of state on his 70th birthday.

Mr Osuji arrived at the mansion in the company of some friends, visibly troubled. Four days earlier, Mr Osuji admitted collecting bribe sums before a senate ad hoc committee investigating the privatisation and commercialisation activities of the BPE, where he was until May 22, 2001, the deputy director in charge of advisory services. He was the first man in our country's history to appear willingly before a parliamentary committee to confess that he took huge bribes while carrying out his official duties. He is also, perhaps, the first man ever to press for reinstatement to his old job after admitting that he was fired for corruption.

Mr Osuji was dismissed from the Bureau of Public Enterprise in June 2001 on the advice of the National Council on Privatisation, (NCP), for collecting bribe from Mike Adenuga.

"The money had to do with National Oil, now Conoil," Mr Osuji confessed before the senate investigative committee. "The percentage of National Oil being sold then was for ₦7.4 billion. Dr Adenuga came to me and said if he paid N7.4 billion, he was going to give us five percent. He also said that if he bought Unipetrol, which was going then at N3.4 billion, he was going to give us 10 percent."

According to an NCP panel reports obtained by NEXT, the bribe Mr Osuji admitted taking was not his first. The genesis of Mr Osuji's dismissal, according to the reports, lies in an earlier allegation of bribery at the initiation of the bid for National Oil.

In that case, Mr Osuij was accused of soliciting and accepting $5,000 from First Atlantic Limited, to influence his advisory services on the evaluation of their Expression of Interest in National Oil and Chemical Company (NOLCHEM).

A history of bribe taking

"An officer of First Atlantic named Mr Charles Osuji as the person he gave the money," a November 2003 memo authored by Abdulrazaq Oniyangi, the organisation's general counsel at the time, said. "The vice president, chairman of the National Council on Privatisation wanted Mr Osuji fired but because there was no proof and the allegation was unsubstantiated, the DG made a case against terminating his appointment to avoid sacking staff indiscriminately."

Mr Osuji also denied the allegation and no charges were pressed.

In the bid for National Oil, Mr Adenuga offered the highest price for the National Oil and Chemical Company (NOLCHEM) and the BPE under Nasir El-Rufai's leadership recommended his as the winning bid.

Shortly after the privatisation, Mr. Osuji received more money - in bank draft - as gratification from Mr Adenuga. According to Mr Oniyangi's memo, Mr Osuji attempted to present the money to Mr El-Rufai as an appreciation from Mr Adenuga for emerging winner of the National Oil bid.

"Mr Osuji was warned and instructed to return the money to Mr Adenuga," Mr. Oniyangi said in his memo.

Mr Osuji was asked to return the money which he said was held on call in a Zenith Bank account but he could not show proof that the money was returned one month later. He was subsequently sacked.

While admitting taking the bribe, Mr Osuji told the senate he had committed the crime on behalf of his then boss, Mr El-Rufai. He added that he failed to transmit the bribe sums to his boss and that led to his sack.

"I did not give the bribe to El-Rufai because Adenuga was paying small small," he confessed pleading that the senate intervene to return him to the bureau.

Mr El-Rufai, however, quickly denied his claims through a media statement by his media consultant, Muyiwa Adekeye.

"Osuji came to inform El-Rufai that he had been asked by Adenuga to give him N25 million and $100,000 as ‘a gift' in gratitude for selling NOLCHEM to him," Mr Adekeye said. "He rejected the bribe and ensured Osuji was punished for collecting it. That was the proper thing to do, and it was done."

Besides collecting bribes, Mr Osuji has also lied to the National Assembly in the past. In 2003, two years after his dismissal, he petitioned the House of Representatives Public Petition Committee protesting his "unjust dismissal" from the BPE.

In the petition, he claimed he had no connection with Mr Adenuga and that he also had no involvement in the transaction that led to the sale of National Oil.

"My only involvement was that I introduced Mr Adenuga to Mr El-Rufai in the BPE," Mr Osuji told the House of Reps Committee, under oath in 2003.

Weak anti-corruption system

Mr Osuji's admittance of bribery exposes the weakness of the Nigerian anti-corruption system. According to Mr El-Rufai, after Mr Osuji was dismissed, the late Bola Ige, then Attorney General, and Joseph Sanusi, then Governor of the Central Bank, made the case for his prosecution under the ICPC Act but the case was abandoned.

"The file must still be in the Federal Ministry of Justice," he said.

In 2010, Transparency International rated Nigeria 134th on the global corruption index, with a corruption index of 2.4, alongside countries like Zimbabwe and Honduras. Nigeria was rated only a point ahead of Pakistan and two ahead of Haiti.

Since admitting the crime, none of the nation's anti-corruption agencies or the police have made any move to charge him for the crime.

Officials of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission said their hands were tied by the Act establishing the commission.

Folu Olamiti, spokesperson of the commission said that they could only move to prosecute Mr Osuji if someone petitioned him before the chairman of the commission.

"We are waiting for the senate committee to finish their investigation and publish their report," Mr. Olamiti said. "We can't pick someone who is answering questions at the senate."

"Moreover, Our Act says we can only act if someone petitions us," he added.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is also waiting on the report of the senate committee before launching any proceedings.

"There is a senate ad hoc committee working on it now," Femi Baba Femi, EFCC spokesperson said. "We cannot just jump into it just because we heard something someone said."

Similar probes in the senate, however, ended in dead ends.

Official corruption

In addition to Mr Osuiji's conduct at the BPE, there are other several revelations of bribery and corruption. In the bid for National Oil only, both former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, also lobbied the then DG in an attempt to influence the bidding process.

Mr El-Rufai admitted that as the bids were being evaluated, Mr Obasanjo informed him that Shell's management had come to him complaining that the BPE had frustrated their bid for NOLCHEM.

"Thabo Mbeki, then South African President, had also called Obasanjo to press Engen's case," Mr. El-Rufai said. "As the bid process unfolded, Vice President Abubakar Atiku also told me that a former president and a notable traditional ruler had asked him to intervene for Mike Adenuga's Consolidated Oil."