REVELATIONS are emerging about how controversial businessman and publisher of the National Mirror newspaper, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, allegedly diverted funds meant for the resuscitation of national carrier Air Nigeria into his private coffers.
The revelations come as an accountant previously in the employ of the beleaguered airline, Mr. John I. Nnorom, blew the whistle on the businessman’s alleged activities.
In an explosive tell-all detailing what he alleges were Mr. Ibrahim’s nefarious activities and backing same with documentary evidence, Mr. Nnorom said his former employer “diverted a loan of N35.5 billion obtained by Air Nigeria from the Federal Government Aviation Fund – and channeled the cash into his personal account.”
“The loan was granted to Air Nigeria as part of the government’s efforts to salvage the ailing domestic aviation industry. The loan was guaranteed by United Bank for Africa (UBA). But Mr. Ibrahim, who is fast consolidating a reputation as one of Nigeria’s most daring kingpins of fraud, diverted the money into his personal account,” Mr. Nnorom said.
Nnorom attributed the opportunity for light to be shed on Mr. Ibrahim’s alleged activities to the Senate of the federal republic, singling out two lawmakers in the National Assembly, Senator Hope Uzodinma and Rep. Nkiruka Onyejeocha for commendation.
Without those lawmakers giving him a chance to voice is accusations, Mr. Nnorom says, the public would never have known of what he says were Mr. Ibrahim’s fraudulent activities.
According to Nnorom, “The diligence of the Senate has made Nigerians to know how Mr. Ibrahim pulled off the heist. He had ploughed the loan into NICON Investment Limited, a company owned 100% by him and his wife.”
The former Air Nigeria employee also alleged that his efforts to alert the public to Mr. Ibrahim’s alleged acts of fraud had undermined his own personal safety, as he now believes Mr. Ibrahim or agents loyal to him are out to eliminate him.
“Whilst I was pursuing the cause of justice against Jimoh Ibrahim,” says John Nnorom, “assassins were sent to kill me. I was trailed all around the country, even as far as south eastern Nigeria when I traveled to pick documents from my house in Umuahia, Abia State.
“Mr. Ibrahim later claimed in an interview with City magazine (dated October 3, 2012) that the men who trailed my movements were police officers detailed to arrest me for fabricating lies and making false allegations.
“Luckily for me, the assassins (cased) my village home in Ovim, Abia State, while I headed to Umuahia, the state capital, straight from Lagos. I left Umuahia to Abuja without stopping at my village. I escaped Mr. Ibrahim’s assassins to expose his monumental secrets to Nigerians.”
The alleged diversion of funds meant for the airline by Mr. Ibrahim put Air Nigeria in a precarious situation where regular maintenance work on aircrafts, alongside routine checks and servicing, were not possible on the fleet of 11 aircrafts.
For Mr. Nnorom, this meant that the aircrafts were practically coffins in the air.
The accusations levied against Mr. Ibrahim met initial doubts with officials, including the chairman of Bank of Industry, Lady Oputa, and an unnamed executive director of the United Bank of Africa, UBA.
Their doubts, according to Nnorom, later gave way to shock and consternation after they were provided documentary evidence of Ibrahim’s activities.
“She could not believe what Jimoh Ibrahim did with forged documents to process the Bank of Industry loan. She said that UBA showed her bank officials enough evidence that Air Nigeria needed the loan – and that UBA guaranteed the loan,” Nnorom said of Mrs. Oputa’s reaction to the evidence of his allegations.
He goes on to present Mr. Ibrahim as a troubled businessman whose dubious business practices have finally caught up with him, as he is having a tough time keeping with the terms of his financial obligations.
“Today, Bank of Industry, UBA, Ex-Air Nigeria CEO, Ex-Air Nigeria Executive Director (Finance), and Nigeria’s 109 senators are all speaking the same language. It’s no longer a secret that Jimoh Ibrahim diverted the huge loan of N35.5 billion into his personal account,” Nnorom said, making an aggressive case against Ibrahim.
“The fifteen-year loan with a six-month grace period was only repaid for four months when Jimoh Ibrahim asked me to seek UBA approval to suspend the loan repayment,” he added, branding Jimoh Ibrahim “a thief and a national fraudster.”
Mr. Nnorom said his main cause is to see that justice is done in the matter concerning Ibrahim’s alleged activities. As far as he is concerned, he says, the evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Ibrahim is overwhelming and it calls into question why the authorities have yet to move against him, especially when influential government officials are no more in doubt of the startling disclosures levied against Ibrahim.
Describing how his whistle-blowing activities had caused Ibrahim to launch an aggressive effort to frame him, Nnorom said the businessman went as far as influencing the police to trail him around the country and declaring him wanted on the pages of newspapers.
So far, he says, all such efforts failed, thanks to the efforts of the current police inspector-general, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, who deployed a special squad to investigate the dubious charges against him and subsequently dismissed the charges.
John Nnorom also said that up to N10 billion paid by the accountant-general of Nigeria to NICON Insurance Plc for the payment of pensioners was also diverted by Mr. Ibrahim to buy himself a Bombardier Challenger 625 private jet.
“In any advanced country, all the businesses established by Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim would have been taken over by the government and the man sent to jail,” he said.