₦airaland Forum

1stknight:
I Thought is Boko Haram,

Written by Oluwatoyin Malik   Sunday, 13 November 2011

The Oyo State Police Command recently arrested four serving policemen working with Force CID, Alagbon who had been coming to the state, on the pretext that they were working on petitions, to carry out indiscriminate arrest and extortion of people they tagged Yahoo boys. Oluwatoyin Malik reports.

MENTION the name, Alhaji Razak Olatunji, and many may not be conscious of the name but once there is a mention of Alhaji man-lover, what would follow it would be torrents of comments, mostly negative. This is because of the image the owner of the name had cut for himself. Alhaji Razak had been allegedly notorious for  going after people he tagged yahoo boys to extort them. However, he was able to succeed in his illegalities with the assistance of some serving police officers with whom he usually went after his targets.

Alhaji Razak’s modus operandi with the policemen was said to be such that made people to wonder whether they were armed robbers hiding under police uniform and using police weapons to dispossess members of the public of their belongings while pretending to arrest them for fraudulent activities.

It was further gathered that many people had fallen victims of Alhaji Razak’s gang,  with their mobile phones, laptops, cash and even car impounded. One of the victims who spoke with Sunday Tribune under the condition of anonymity said his car is still with Alhaji’s group which they told him they had handed over to the EFCC in Lagos.

Alhaji Razak had allegedly perpetrated his criminal acts in different parts of the South Western geopolitical zone, posing as informant for the police and EFCC, and joining the policemen in arresting ‘suspects’. He was said to have been to Ogbomoso, Malaysia, South Africa, Dubai, Ife, Ibadan and other places and had been making a lot of money from this. They were said to usually present a fake petition and warrant of arrest. However, his cup became full on Saturday October 29, 2011 when he was arrested with the policemen working with him by policemen from Monitoring Unit of the Oyo State Police Command.

According to information gathered, on that day, Alhaji Razak had arrived Ibadan on Friday, October 28 with four policemen who left their duty posts at Force Criminal Investigation Department, Alagbon, Lagos and three other civilians. Armed with guns, they had allegedly stormed one Segola Guest House at Apata area and broke into one of the rooms where a guest lodged. After ransacking the room, they were said have robbed one Richard Adebayo, alleged of being a fraudster popularly referred to as Yahoo boy, of his United States passport, a Gucci wallet, handsets, laptop, N35,000 and $1,650.

A while after they first left the hotel, the group had reportedly returned to the hotel based on information they got that the real money they were after had not been got from Richard, but they met more than they bargained for when people who were around the hotel area  formed a mob and were prepared to burn Alhaji man-lover’s peugeot 406 car with its occupants.

Acting on information, operatives from the monitoring unit went to the hotel to appraise the situation and also prevent mob action. By the time the policemen got there, Alhaji Rasak’s car was reported to have been surrounded by the mob while he wound up the glass and locked the door from inside to prevent people from physically assaulting him.

It was gathered that when the police from Monitoring Unit got there, they showed him their identity cards and asked him to wind the glass down. He did and one of the occupants of the car attempted to use the opportunity to escape through the back. However, the vigilant crowd noticed this and attempted to mob him. As the policemen were trying to save the situation, the policemen from Lagos who parked the bus they brought from Lagos some metres away, started firing shots at the crowd. They also used the opportunity to escape but were pursued by the police who also contacted Apata Division to help in stopping the fleeing policemen. They were eventually arrested and disarmed and had been undergoing interrogation at the Monitoring unit. The commercial bus painted in Lagos colour with registration number XJ 212 EPE which they also used for the operation was impounded along with Alhaji Razak’s Peugeot 406 car with registration number TX 423 AAA.

However, Alhaji Razak, in an interview with Sunday Tribune believed that he had not done anything wrong as he was only giving information to the police about yahoo boys  and their activities. Giving an insight into his background, Razak said he attended Eko Boys High School till 1989 and Luba Technical School, Ijebu Ode where he specialised in Catering and finished in 1992. According to 40-year-old Razak, “I didn’t do any bad activities and I don’t know whether they (the policemen) were doing illegal duty. I started working with the police in 2010.

“Whenever I got an information about fraudsters, I would give it to the police and whenever they were ready, they would call me and tell me they had a petition concerning the people I mentioned, and I would join them to go after them. I never knew who wrote the petition, they showed me the petition, and I saw that the petition was approved”.

When asked about the number of the people arrested in the past through his information, Alhaji Razak said they were only two people. He denied going to Malaysia to arrest people, saying that he believed he has the freedom to travel to any part of the continent. “Nobody attacked me in Malaysia. I went there on my own and returned to Nigeria”.

On what happened in Ogbomoso, Alhaji Razak told Sunday Tribune that he received an information from someone about some boys were involved in fraud. “I released the information to the police and we later went for the arrest. It happened this year but I can not recollect the exact month or date. The police got the people with the exhibits and the police took them to Lagos. I don’t know the amount they collected from the boys arrested because they did not disclose it to me but the police gave me N100,000 which was handed over to me by Mr Ernest. They just called me that they have finished the job and that I should come and collect my share which we had agreed to be 10 per cent of whatever they received.

“The next one we did together was the one that led to our arrest. I don’t stay in Ibadan but got the information about the person we came after through a contact. I informed my usual contact within the police in persons of Mr Ernest, Mr Abass, Mr Ifeanyi and Mr Boniface from Force CID, Alagbon. They came on their own and called me that they were already in Ibadan, that I should join them on Friday October 28. We met at Challenge area and I went to show them the places where the fraudsters were that night. The policemen collected their laptops, money and phones, they also took six suspects to Iyaganku Division to be detained. We were in Ibadan till the following day and worked through the night.

“The last place we went was that Segola Hotel around 8a.m. and that was where problem started. We went after two suspects there. When we got there, we met one of them at the reception and arrested him. We asked of the second person and he showed us his room. We met two people in the room. The police took our target’s laptop, some money found in his trousers which he put on the chair and his phones.They also took Richard with them but I was in my own car. About 40 minutes after, we were around Iyaganku when someone called that Richard’s US passport and Gucci purse were missing.

“We turned back and drove towards the hotel but by the time we got there we met a lot of boys and they started beating me. One of them was holding a gun and they collected my money, chain and wrist watch. They were also stoning the vehicle the police brought which was parked some distance from where my own car was. May be because of the stoning, the policemen from Lagos started shooting and left the place. After about 10 minutes, I saw a man but I didn’t know he was a policeman. He introduced himself and that was how I was brought to Monitoring Unit at police headquarters, Eleyele”. Sunday Tribune however gathered that the ‘bail’ fee the gang used to collect from their victims was always in millions of naira while about 15 suspects were detained at Iyaganku  and Sanyo Divisions that Friday night. It was learnt that whenever Alhaji Razak, the policemen on illegal duty arrested their ‘suspects’, they would take them to the police division close to the scene of their operation for detention. They were said to have got the copperation of the Divisions for temporary detention of their ‘suspects’ by flashing their identity cards and making them to believe that they were in Oyo State to effect the arrest based on the petition received at the Force CID, Alagbon.

When asked why he would invite policemen from Lagos State when the perceived crime was perpetrated in Oyo State and even he himself is an indigene of Ogbomoso, Alhaji Razak replied: “The petition I was shown had a covering letter addressed to the Inspector General of Police. I also live in Lagos State, but I once gave the police in Oyo State some information about the fraudsters in 2010 but I did not like the way I was treated. On the latest outing, I was not promised anything but I knew that I would get something after the operation.”

Leaders of students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso besieged the Monitoring Unit on Wednesday November 2 to see Alhaji Razak, just as they rejoiced at his arrest. Speaking with Sunday Tribune, the spokesperson for the students, one Olawale Fadairo who said he was speaking on behalf of over 25,000 students of the Institution proclaimed a kind of fatwa on Razak. “we don’t want Alhaji Razak again. He has been coming to terrorise  and intimidate our fellow students. Several steps had been taken by our student leaders. We held a congress sometime ago and it was resolved that the student leaders, in conjunction with the university management should wage war against Alhaji Razak, and parts of our resolutions at the congress were forwarded to the appropriate quarters like the Inspector General of Police, Oyo State Commissioner of Police, speakers of Oyo and Osun States of Assembly etc.

“We are happy that Alhaji has met his waterloo and we are happy with what the police in Oyo State have done. Alhaji Razak had been operating illegally on our campus and had been impersonating the police. His activities started since 2008. Whenever he came, he used to break into hostels in connivance with some policemen, fully armed, to arrest innocent students. He used to come in the night from 10p.m. upward and if his tartget did not open the door, he would forcefully open the door or enter through the ceiling. In fact, the man has been confirmed to practise homosexualism. He used to claim that he was working for the police as an informant. What we students want to know now is the relationship between this man and the police and if it is appropriate for a civilian to lead policemen on operations. I believe that this is a slap on the face of the Nigeria Police.

“It is not that we are in support of criminality by anyone, including students. If it were to be the police, backed by arrest order and search warrant, who had come to arrest the students, we would have been happy because that is also part of our struggle – to sanitise the society. What we are now fighting against is illegality and we want quick action to be taken against him.

“As students, we have may prayers: We want the police to charge him for impersonation and burglary because he used to break into hostels and would take away phones, wrist watches, laptops and money. He had also paraded himself as an EFCC official, so the EFCC should also charge him to court for corrupt act and impersonation. Many of his victims were afraid to come out because they believed he had the backing og the police. Even there were rumours after his recent arrest that he was released on Tuesday November 1, and that was why we came to see for ourselves. The students believe in the police and it will be a good improvement on police image if he is prosecuted.

Sunday Tribune gathered that the policemen involved were undergoing orderly room trial as it had been confirmed that the petition they said they were acting on had been found to be fake.

The Police Public Relations Officer in Oyo State, while confirming the arrests, told Sunday Tribune that investigations were still ongoing on the case and it would premature to give any statement when the police had not concluded their work.

http://tribune.com.ng/sun/features/5562-policemen-alhaji-in-police-net-for-illegal-arrest-extortion-i-was-just-an-informant-alhaji

nakedall:
and another Ibo minister of oil just buy 20mil EUR house, let the man go back to east and sort it out with those eating their money.

Mike Adenuga, a Nigerian oil and telecoms tycoon, might be Africa’s new richest man.



In March this year, Forbes published its annual rankings of the world’s richest people. Mike Adenuga, who debuted on the list, was ranked as the second richest Nigerian, with a net worth of $2 billion, while Nigerian Aliko Dangote was valued at $13.8 billion.



But shortly after the list was published, controversy erupted in Nigerian media circles. Several Nigerian analysts and Adenuga’s staff refuted our valuation. I was bombarded with emails and messages requesting to know the criteria we used in valuing individuals’ wealth, and our rationale for valuing Adenuga so low.



In our annual Forbes rankings of the world’s richest, we prefer to be conservative in our estimates. We would rather be too low than too high. When working on the 2011 list of the world’s richest, a Forbes reporter tried to reach Dr. Adenuga's representatives to verify his assets, but Adenuga, a chronically reclusive tycoon, did not respond. As a result, our valuation of the man was based solely on his stake in his telecom company Globacom Holding, which at the time was worth $2 billion.



However, fresh findings from a variety of sources including staff from some of his offices, the Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission and analysis from professionals in the energy and telecom sectors indicate that the reclusive telecoms and energy tycoon is easily worth more than $2 billion, and depending upon who you talk to, could be richer than Aliko Dangote, last worth $13.8 billion.



Apart from his 74% stake in Conoil PLC, a Nigerian-listed oil marketing firm he founded (the stake is held through ConPetro Limited, a holding company he fully owns) and his holding in Equitorial Trust Bank, Adenuga owns 100% equity in all his other businesses. Of those, the major assets include Conoil Producing, Nigeria’s largest indigenous oil exploration and production company, which operates six producing oil blocks and holds a 25% stake in Joint Development Zone Block 4, an oil prospecting license which has proven reserves of close to 1 billion barrels of oil and close to a trillion cubic feet of gas.



According to sources at Conoil Producing, the company produces 100,000 barrels of oil per day - much more than any other indigenous exploration firm in the country. In April, Adenuga spent $650 million acquiring Shell’s stake in Oil Mining License (OML) 30, Shell’s most profitable onshore oil block in Nigeria, which is located in the western swamps of the Niger Delta. Adenuga currently controls total equity of Conoil Producing, which analysts estimate could be worth as much as $10 billion. (My calculations are not yet final.)



Among his other assets: mobile telecom firms Globacom Holding and Globacom West Africa, two distinct companies with a combined subscriber base in excess of 30 million people and operations in Nigeria, Ghana, and Benin. Adenuga also single-handedly owns Globacom - at least on paper.



Adenuga also owns equity in Equitorial Trust Bank, one of the few privately-held commercial banks in the country. I haven’t been able to establish Adenuga’s stake in the bank, or its market value. However, Equitorial Trust Bank is one of Nigeria’s less popular banks, so I reckon it won’t be worth so much. The man also owns extensive real estate holdings in some of Nigeria’s most expensive neighborhoods, including the Mike Adenuga Towers, a landmark building in Victoria Island, Lagos. He also owns property in Banana Island - Nigeria’s most expensive neighborhood - and several other properties in Abuja, London, the U.S and Dubai.



Tracking down Adenuga’s net worth is tough work, involving intensive research, series of meetings, conversations and consultations with analysts, journalists, and Adenuga employees. The man himself continually refuses to talk. Speculations are rife in Nigeria that Adenuga might be a front for Nigeria's former military president, Ibrahim Babangida. So in a real sense, Adenuga might not own it all. However, Adenuga's people have denied a business relationship between their boss and the former Nigerian ruler.





A couple of weeks ago, I had a lengthy conversation with Chief Dele Momodu, one of Africa’s most legendary publishers, a former Nigerian presidential candidate, and a protégé of billionaire Mike Adenuga. I was doing research for one of our Forbes lists, and I was seeking his insight into the wealth of some of Nigeria’s richest people. Speaking on Adenuga, he said: “No one in Africa is as rich as Mike Adenuga.”



But the research continues. In good time, we will unravel Adenuga’s worth for what it is. If you have any tips, feel free to email me: mnsehe [at] forbes [dot] com.


http://news.yahoo.com/nigerian-billionaire-mike-adenuga-might-africas-richest-man-194359566.html