Anti-corruption body, HEDA, has petitioned the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate and prosecute former Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai over graft.

The request was triggered by a recent Peoples Gazette report that detailed how ICPC operatives raided a property linked to Mr Buratai, recovering valuables including luxury cars, Rolex watches, and hard currencies.

Though the ICPC later claimed the raid was inspired by an ongoing investigation of a military contractor Kabiru Sallam, it failed to dissociate Mr Sallam or the property from the former army chief who had earlier told The Gazette that ICPC had no warrant to search his property.

In a statement seen by The Gazette on Sunday, HEDA’s Chairman, Olanrewaju Suraju, lamented that the level of gross abuse of office and other misconduct among appointees of President Muhammadu Buhari are unbecoming. 

The group said it was “worried to about such abuse of public trust, hence the need to act fast.”

HEDA called  ICPC’s attention to earlier cases of misconduct involving  Mr Buratai, who is now Nigeria’s ambassador to the Republic of Benin.

Citing The Gazette’s report from February 2021, Mr Suraju, said the former Chief of Army Staff abused his position by lobbying and receiving government contracts from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) through his company Yasiga Nigeria Limited violating Section 6 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act and the Corrupt Practices Act 2000.

The Gazette’s report had detailed  how Yasiga Nigeria Limited, a company registered in 1996 by Mr Buratai  a retired lieutenant general and immediate past chief of army staff cornered disbursements from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a federal agency established to address deprivation in the oil-rich Delta region but which has been enmeshed in decade-long multibillion-naira contract scams.

Yasiga, a commercial enterprise which Mr Buratai was running even as a top military officer, received N49.7 million from the NDDC for unspecified contracts on April 1, 2014, in gross violation of Section 6 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act.

The firm was also credited N73.1 million from the NDDC on June 10 of the same year. Both transactions were paid into Yasiga’s account 1015538180 with the United Bank for Africa. 

On June 17, 2014, seven days after the last tranche of payment was received from the NDDC, Mr Buratai, a major-general at the time, transferred N10 million from Yasiga to his personal account. He was appointed chief of army staff by President Muhammadu Buhari a year later.

HEDA further cited media reports that exposed Dubai properties acquired by the former military chief while in active service.

The anti-corruption campaigner called on the ICPC to “diligently investigate the current case in addition to the previous allegations of acquisition of Dubai properties and contracting for the NDDC while serving as a military officer and to prosecute accordingly so as to deter others and further show that the law applies to all Nigerians irrespective of class.”