₦airaland Forum

I have spent time on the Third Floor of the United Nations Headquarters in New York, where the press corps works. It is not a gentle place. The journalists there are seasoned professionals drawn from every region of the world: people who have reported wars, corruption scandals, and the fall of governments. They are interested in facts, not impressed by titles.

They ask the question behind the question, and they do not move until they have an answer. When a Permanent Representative walks into that building to speak for 220 million people, the world watches. And so, on behalf of those 220 million people, I am watching too. I am watching with grief.

Last week, President Bola Tinubu appointed Senator Jimoh Ibrahim to New York as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN. The congratulatory messages arrived immediately, as they always do in Nigeria, where appointment is confused with achievement and proximity to power as evidence of character.

The Ooni of Ife called him the right man for the job. Former Senate President Ahmad Lawan called him one of the finest Nigerians he had worked with. Governor Dapo Abiodun said something about a “distinguished career.”. I invite these men to examine the record.

Ibrahim’s business career is not one of creation or upliftment. It is of acquisition and collapse. That is why, for years, his name has circulated in connection with financial disputes, asset issues, indebtedness, investigations, forgery, tax allegations, embezzlement, money laundering, and massive debt recovery proceedings.

Consider: NICON Airways: acquired, collapsed, approximately 300 workers left without wages from May 2007. The National Industrial Court awarded those workers N1.5 billion in 2013. Ibrahim appealed. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal in 2017.

In 2024, a statement from former staff representatives confirmed that N808.7 million in salary arrears remained unpaid, along with N8.1 million in pension contributions that had been deducted from workers’ salaries but never remitted. Nearly two decades later, that money—their money, taken from their wages—has cruelly not reached them.

Air Nigeria: taken over in 2010, collapsed in 2012. The National Assembly’s own Joint Committee on Aviation stated on the record that the airline was grounded because Ibrahim diverted a N35.5 billion government intervention loan guaranteed by UBA, funded by the Bank of Industry—into his family company, NICON Investment Limited.

His Finance Director, John Nnorom, a qualified accountant who resigned and was then prosecuted on Ibrahim’s initiative, submitted detailed evidence to a Senate committee in 2016, including the acquisition of Energy Bank of Ghana with Afrexim loan funds registered not in Air Nigeria’s name but in Ibrahim’s personal name. He was later discharged and acquitted. The Senate’s 2014 resolution directing the CBN Governor to recover the aviation funds from Ibrahim was never enforced.

NICON Insurance: acquired, gutted. Former managers say Ibrahim fired 85 per cent of staff, and the company went from national market dominance to less than one per cent of its pre-privatisation client base. In 2016, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) sealed its offices for N182.7 million in unremitted taxes.

FIRS filed a 10-count criminal charge against Ibrahim personally—not his company, him—for five years of unpaid taxes totalling N4.86 billion and for producing and presenting forged Tax Clearance Certificates to renew expatriate quota positions for 30 persons. That charge sits in the Federal High Court in Abuja.

In November 2020, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria seized 12 named properties from Ibrahim over a N69.4 billion debt. AMCON said publicly that Ibrahim and his companies had been “recalcitrant and unenthusiastic” about repayment despite multiple exit opportunities. The court filing—Suit No. FHL/L/CL/776/2016—was filed in 2016. It took four years to obtain the seizure order. How much of that N69.4 billion has been recovered?

Remember the famous NewsWatch magazine? Until a court stopped him, Ibrahim was the one who tried to rip it out of the soil and throw it away.

In New York, Aersale Inc. dragged Ibrahim to the US District Court, claiming over $7.68 million for breach of aircraft lease agreements in which he had signed as personal guarantor. In 2012, EFCC agents interrogated him for hours; sources at the time reported he had burned documents before the interrogation and sustained visible injuries in the process.

These are the credentials of the man being promoted by Aso Rock to represent Nigeria at the UN.

Now consider the environment. The Nigerian Mission’s anaemic website is a monument to institutional abandonment. Its most recent UNGA session archive stops at the 72nd session, which ended in 2018. There are no recent events or records, and no evidence of a functioning communications operation.

The building, just one block from the UN, is, in effect, a ghost. Into this ghost is Nigeria thrusting an operative who will abandon hundreds of unpaid workers, billions in court-ordered debts, criminal charges, a burned archive of documents, and the wreckage of at least three institutions that Nigerians trusted. What message will he bring to the world: that he represents Nigerians?

The timing makes it worse. Ibrahim travels to the media capital of the world that already knows Bola Tinubu by name. Sadly, that is not from reporting great success on the UN podium of conquering insecurity in Nigeria or in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Instead, it is from the federal courthouse in Chicago, where the drug scandal of 1993 is a matter of permanent public record and in a country where Tinubu is begging to hide his records because they would do him “irreparable harm.” International journalists know about these ghosts. And when they want to ask about them, who will answer for Nigeria?

This is not governance. It is the re-circulation of embarrassment. It is what happens when a government has contempt for its own people, when it trusts that outrage will not last, that the congratulatory messages will drown out the record.

Ibrahim’s appointment is not a diplomatic strategy. It is a confession: that in the grotesque estimation of this administration, Nigeria’s seat at the world’s most important table is a reward to be bestowed, not a trust to be honoured.

I have written previously about the comatose state of the Nigerian Mission to the UN. I write again now, with the same outrage and something heavier than outrage. I write with grief. The grief of a country that keeps asking its citizens to lower their self-esteem. The grief of workers in Abuja waiting for wages since 2007. The grief of a continent that could be represented with distinction.

Only last week, in front of an international TV audience, presidential adviser Daniel Bwala infamously demonstrated the pain and humiliation of a compromised operative being ruthlessly disrobed. Several of the ambassadors that the Tinubu government is currently trying to shoehorn into relevance are known to be of the same mould of hypocrisy and charlatanism.

Nigerians are being systematically desensitised to shame by a government with a sense neither of smell nor of vision. This is an insult in real time. It is irreparable harm to Nigeria.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/punchng.com/jimoh-ibrahim-in-broad-daylight/%3famp

make I settle down read to understand wetin dey sup here

Most of appointees of this despicable govt are people of questionable characters. So there is no denying that a govt formed based on criminal basis can every produced people of integrity.

However what is baffling is how does these kind of people overcame state institutions like the EFCC, ICPC, DSS, NPF to get into our national life? Does govt thinks about the global consequences of this kind of decisions especially @ the international levels?

So because he has court cases against his businesses means he's not fit

Jimoh Ibrahim is highly qualified for the post. He is very intelligent and brilliant.

LLB/MPA, OAU
LLM/IT, Harvard
PhD Cambridge


He's the first individual to receive a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from the University of Cambridge, graduating in July 2022 from Churchill College

If he was a criminal as you claimed, he wouldn't have had opportunities at those world class institutions.

Next please

Racoon:
Most of appointees of this despicable govt are people of questionable characters. So there is no denying that a govt formed based on criminal basis can every produced people of integrity.

However what is baffling is how does these kind of people overcame state institutions like the EFCC, ICPC, DSS, NPF to get into our national life? Does govt thinks about the global consequences of this kind of decisions especially @ the international levels?

I'm more concerned about your use of English in all of this!

Racoon:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/punchng.com/jimoh-ibrahim-in-broad-daylight/%3famp

Trump with all his baggage is the president of the USA. So, stop all this nonsense gaslighting. It will not work. A person is innocent until proven guilty in a competent court with jurisdiction.

Please who wrote this crap, the person can cry from now till eternity

You can't work for tinibu if your hands are clean

A little google search on this man will tell you a lot about his character.
Yet we are sending such a man with a lot of wrong around him to such exalted office.
We are a joke is this country. No one will take this country serious until we start taking ourselves serious!
This man is very UNFIT to represent Nigeria as the ambassador! He is of a dubious character.

Racoon:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/punchng.com/jimoh-ibrahim-in-broad-daylight/%3famp

English!!! Mr Man, go and settle your personal scores with Mr Jimoh, take him to court or better still take Tinubu to court for appointing him & stop disturbing the peace of Nigerians with invaluable grammar

davit:
I'm more concerned about your use of English in all of this!

Same here too! People that don't know the truth , but jump @judging from everything they read online

The federal government knows all these grievous allegations against Jimoh Ibrahim and still went ahead to give him such a laudable appointment.

The only way to stop him is for the writer of this article to write officially to the UN.

datola:
So because he has court cases against his businesses means he's not fit

Jimoh Ibrahim is highly qualified for the post. He is very intelligent and brilliant.

LLB/MPA, OAU
LLM/IT, Harvard
PhD Cambridge


He's the first individual to receive a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from the University of Cambridge, graduating in July 2022 from Churchill College

If he was a criminal as you claimed, he wouldn't have had opportunities at those world class institutions.

Next please

He is meant to be qualified in "character and learning".

Isn't that what universities offer?

The same people who defended Air Peace owner wanted in America for fraud and money laundering are trying to destroy Ibrahim.

They protect their own criminals but always condemn others.

Read the comments above.

Now tell me there's hope.

I wonder why BAT could appoint someone like this guy as Nigeria's UN Permanent representative, when we have array of seasoned diplomats and technocrats.

There are other positions he could have given Jimoh if he had wanted to bring him into his government.

datola:
So because he has court cases against his businesses means he's not fit

Jimoh Ibrahim is highly qualified for the post. He is very intelligent and brilliant.

LLB/MPA, OAU
LLM/IT, Harvard
PhD Cambridge


He's the first individual to receive a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from the University of Cambridge, graduating in July 2022 from Churchill College

If he was a criminal as you claimed, he wouldn't have had opportunities at those world class institutions.

Next please

I beg carry your useless defense to the bush. How many doctorate degrees does Dangote has, having a doctorate degree is no guarantee that you are a good business man

It is pure logical for anyone to reason& identify Nigeria as a gangster paradise....Jimoh Ibrahim is Nigeria"s replica of wolf of wall street...The write up might be a politically motivated sponsored post but it is spiced up with nothing but the truth

I will actually blame the opposition for this. They allowed Tinubu's government to let it have its way and who's going to be embarrassed for it? The country. Most of them are only interested in winning the election, not defending the country.


Moroco Recalls Ambassador In Nigeria Over Presidency Unethical Practices-bbc by itetemi: 5:02pm On Mar 11, 2015*
https://www.nairaland.com/2191046/moroco-recalls-ambassador-nigeria-over

Such an embarrassment.
Who will rescue this country?

Jimoh Ibrahim has a series of unresolved controversies and allegations against him.

i bet you will still need to make more research since that is your calling.

datola:
So because he has court cases against his businesses means he's not fit

Jimoh Ibrahim is highly qualified for the post. He is very intelligent and brilliant.

LLB/MPA, OAU
LLM/IT, Harvard
PhD Cambridge


He's the first individual to receive a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from the University of Cambridge, graduating in July 2022 from Churchill College

If he was a criminal as you claimed, he wouldn't have had opportunities at those world class institutions.

Next please

agreed that he is not a criminal.. But can he kindly pay those staffs? Haba only him?

DUBIOUS AND QUESTIONABLE CHARACTERS FROM TOP TO DOWN.

We are gradually going into the way of VENEZUELA AND MEXICO.

Check out in the next 7 - 10 years Time, the type of Politicians these Thieves will breed .

May God help us

datola:
So because he has court cases against his businesses means he's not fit

Jimoh Ibrahim is highly qualified for the post. He is very intelligent and brilliant.

LLB/MPA, OAU
LLM/IT, Harvard
PhD Cambridge


He's the first individual to receive a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from the University of Cambridge, graduating in July 2022 from Churchill College

If he was a criminal as you claimed, he wouldn't have had opportunities at those world class institutions.

Next please

What nonsense, what drivel. Pray tell me how does academic achievement correlate with integrity?. Jimoh Ibrahim is not fit for the job but if in the considered wisdom of the President, he found him worthy despite his less than stellar reputation, that's on him

datola:
So because he has court cases against his businesses means he's not fit

Jimoh Ibrahim is highly qualified for the post. He is very intelligent and brilliant.

LLB/MPA, OAU
LLM/IT, Harvard
PhD Cambridge


He's the first individual to receive a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from the University of Cambridge, graduating in July 2022 from Churchill College

If he was a criminal as you claimed, he wouldn't have had opportunities at those world class institutions.

Next please

If a man comes to marry your daughter .... he is well certified ...6 degrees .... should it matter if he has court cases.... for robberies...murders and child rape? .... does this make him not fit to marry your daughter?

Birds of the same feather flock together. The world is ruled by criminally minded, incompetent and corrupt persons. Nigeria cannot be an exception.

Racoon:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/punchng.com/jimoh-ibrahim-in-broad-daylight/%3famp

The guy na first class graduate.
Side by side with obi, Ibrahim will outclass him on any matter.
I watch his interview on politics today, that guy said a lot and I was educated.
Infact that guy is intellectually pace.
The guy was never a governor, if he had been, he would have used government money to do business like Peter obi.
Owing money is not failure.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm... It's quite unfortunate 🤔

greatseed:
English!!! Mr Man, go and settle your personal scores with Mr Jimoh, take him to court or better still take Tinubu to court for appointing him & stop disturbing the peace of Nigerians with invaluable grammar

If Nigerians do vote, Tinubu can win no single state in this country.

Who are the Nigerians and who are the ones crying in pain?

Even those covering up for him struggle to speak on the streets again. I only hear them write trashes here to maintain their destructive ego

May nature naturalise this nation again

dapadawee:
The guy na first class graduate.
Side by side with obi, Ibrahim will outclass him on any matter.
I watch his interview on politics today, that guy said a lot and I was educated.
Infact that guy is intellectually pace.
The guy was never a governor, if he had been, he would have used government money to do business like Peter obi.
Owing money is not failure.

Owing your father such money over time is not painful and not a failure...?
I wonder why some persons will always remain in the stone age.
You don't know what is national economy at all