Investigations by Saharareporters have uncovered details of the shady relationship between Farida Waziri, chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and Victor Uwajeh, one of the agency’s “investigators” who is now regarded as an enemy.
Over the last two months, the EFCC has proudly publicized its arrest and detention of Uwajeh. In various statements and pre-edited reports written by EFCC spokesman Femi Babafemi and planted in the local media and some web logs, the anti-corruption agency not only told about its arrest of Uwajeh but also offered lurid accounts of his involvement in an extortion scheme that targeted Mrs. Cecilia Ibru, former CEO of Oceanic Bank.

But Saharareporters investigations reveal that Victor Uwajeh and Mrs. Waziri have had a longstanding personal relationship that dates back to the late 2000’s when, according to impeccable sources, Mrs. Waziri was struggling to survive after retiring from the Nigerian police.

As soon as Waziri was appointed to run the EFCC, she turned to Uwajeh to serve as one of her top investigators. On November 8, 2008, Uwajeh received a letter signed by Waziri that mandated him to conduct inquiries regarding Politically Exposed Persons. Part of the letter reads: “The scope of the instruction covers inquiries in respect of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPS) and Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria”.

Mrs. Waziri at Uwajei's house before she became EFCC chair
Several professional investigators within the agency told Saharareporters that they found Mrs. Waziri’s hiring of Uwajeh “highly irregular and curious,” in the words of one of them. Another one told us that the whisper at the agency was that Uwajeh was appointed to do “Madam’s private investigations and business.”

Several of our sources in the EFCC said the manner of Uwajeh’s appointment raised several questions. They wondered whether the agency advertised that it was looking for an external “investigator” before hiring Mr. Uwajeh. They also said Waziri has to answer whether Uwajeh received any form of training or certification as a professional investigator prior to his engagement. Another question has to do with how he was getting paid since he was not a formal employee of the agency. He also received an appointment letter for a duration of 6 months, but a board member of the agency told Saharareporters that he has seen nothing in the EFCC act that allows for such an appointment.

Armed with the letter, Uwajeh went to work. In a short time, Mrs. Waziri redefined his duty, charging him to solely target Nuhu Ribadu, the former chair of the EFCC, as well as his unspecified “friends” who were accused of giving Mrs. Waziri a nightmare. Uwajeh, who was then partly based in London, was funded to travel extensively around the globe to search out incriminating material with which to nail Ribadu.

In what EFCC insiders described as a scam, Uwajeh fed Mrs. Waziri’s obsession by passing her information he gathered from the Internet, especially on websites that offer background checks and property information on individuals for as low as $5.

Uwajeh’s hunt for Ribadu was soon expanded to include the operators of Saharareporters, leading to a series of paid advertisements in Nigerian dailies (in 2008) in which Omoyele Sowore was alleged to own four properties worth millions of dollars in the New York area. One of those properties, it turned out, was actually a student hostel owned by the Columbia University in New York.

For his part, Ribadu was accused of owning houses in London through one Fatima Ribadu and several other Ribadus that once lived together as students in another apartment housing complex in California.

“Uwajeh had a habit of packaging all this useless information and handing them over to Femi Babafemi, a former Sun newspaper reporter with links to Buba Marwa. The Sun, a Nigerian tabloid, is owned by former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu. Before long, major Nigerian newspapers, including the Daily Trust, wrote headlines alleging that Ribadu owned expensive properties in several cities around the world.

Our sources revealed that Mrs. Waziri was ecstatic when a group of self-acclaimed “anti-corruption” lawyers, Charles Ogboli and Osuagwu Ugochukwu, sued Ribadu before a federal high court claiming that they had obtained concrete information about his ownership of a villa in Dubai. The fate of that case remains foggy, but the police later charged Osuagwu and his colleague with extortion.

Sources told Saharareporters that the relationship between Mrs. Waziri and Uwajeh went sour over a number of bad deals. “Uwajeh was threatened and told to shush up,” one of the sources, an EFCC agent, told us. He added that, “Madam [Waziri] wasn’t sure that Uwajeh, who knows far too, would not spill the beans, she decided to arrest and detain him.”

Uwajeh was first held for 15 days at an underground detention cell at the EFCC headquarters in Abuja, shackled to the ground. “Madam had hoped she would break him and secure his total cooperation in stopping any kind of negative publicity regarding her shenanigans,” said an EFCC source.

Uwajeh, who was recently released on bail by an Abuja High Court after spending another 30 days in Kuje Prison, “is afraid for his life and has gone underground to avoid getting killed by Mrs. Waziri’s agents,” a source told us.


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http://www.saharareporters.com/real-news/sr-headlines/5491-farida-waziri-and-victor-uwajeh-tale-of-corruption-incompetence-and-betrayal-at-the-top-of-the-efcc.html