He was calm and unruffled. He sat on the high table with the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), Mr Olanipekun Olukoyode. Hon. Justice Latifat Okunnu and Prof Adele Jinadu sat close to him. For many of his old friends, it was difficult to recognise Olanrewaju Suraju. He had grown beards. He wore an unusual dress that would make it difficult to identify him unless at close scrutiny.
Looking different at every occasion might just be one technique Suraju, the Chairman of Nigeria’s most remarkable anti-corruption group has devised to delude corrupt actors who once made attempt to eliminate him.
For instance, in 2022 at midnight, armed men stormed his house. They did not come to steal but took away valuables, perhaps as a decoy. The deal, it appeared, was to kill or at least warn him that corruption has the means and ways to fight back, anywhere, anyhow and anytime.
The storming of his house was with precision: the time, the break-in, the stealth, the gadgets employed and the expertise of the invaders indicated they were professional. There have been several other threats to him, his soulmate, Sulaiman Arigbadu and the staff that are usually on edge at the close of work each day for constant fear of being trailed.
This has not deterred the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, (HEDA Resource Centre) in the vigorous pursuit of Nigerian cruel but powerful sleaze network. The travails of the group, for 20 years now, clearly shows that the fight against corruption in Nigeria is like a fight with a lion right in its den. The consequences are life threatening. Fighting corruption in Nigeria is like walking barefoot on a rope adored with blade edges.
This is why it is remarkable that for 20 years, a Nigerian organisation HEDA Resource Centre has been confronting the lion in its den. At the anniversary held in Lagos this week, which I attended, the EFCC Chairman lamented the vicious hearts of Nigerian cartel of powerful rogues.
He said after he assumed office, he suddenly developed strands of grey hairs in months. He sometimes leaves his office 1am in the morning, yet would go home with unfinished files. He narrated one incidence recently, when on the last day of the previous year, billions of naira were being illicitly transferred by politically exposed persons. He watched the illegal transfers on his security screen forcing him to step aside from the New Year praise and worship night to take decisive action against the complicit bank accounts. They were cronies of Government ministries moving illegal cash not spent during the previous year.
If there is a major problem hunting Nigeria, it is the audacity of corruption in high and low places. In the last half a century, experts think funds stolen from Nigeria are enough to build a new, prosperous country. Corruption has become the monster that rules public and private services. Many politicians in Nigeria see the theft of public funds as habitual. Budgets have become mere yearly rituals.
Professor Jinadu at the event said in many instances, the motivating factor for public service seems to be access to public wealth. Fronts are created to launder public money through exaggerated contracts, over invoicing, outright stealing of funds to budget manipulation and kickbacks.
There is institutionalised corruption. This comes in the form of bogus self awarded salaries, perks, privileges, constituency allowances, and legally protected sleaze. Apart from corrupt practices of highly placed people, artisans, professionals wear the dirty garb of graft making the cancerous plaque the addiction of the rich and poor.
In his remarks, Olukoyode regretted that corruption is defended viciously by its practitioners, local and international capons, powerful people, rulers of darkness who do everything possible to sustain the rot. It is this hegemon that HEDA Resource Centre decided, for the past twenty years to confront with all its strength. The EFCC Chairman, described HEDA Resource Centre as one of the most ‘prolific’ anti-corruption civil society organisations in Nigeria.
Led by a formidable team of men and women, with two icons, Olanrewaju Suraju and Sulaiman Arigbabu at the captain’s seat, the Centre has continued to strike the sky like a comet that awes politically exposed persons.
One of the most remarkable corruption cases exposed by HEDA Resource Centre was the Malabu oil scam. It involved the transfer of about $1.1billion dollars by two Nigerian oil giants through Nigerian government officials to the account of a former Minister of Petroleum. About half of the fund went into the account of another Nigerian individual who owns an oil company.
The crook fronted for many government officials under the Government of Mr Goodluck Jonathan who ruled Nigeria for six years. When HEDA Resource Centre launched this campaign in 2016, every effort including espionage, threat to life, sending armed agents to the office, phone bug, spying and trailing of its workers at the anti-corruption institution was made to hack down, blackmail or intimidate the group. The scam was linked to OPL-245. In the face of poisoned arrows fired at the organisation’s officials at the homefront, international anti-corruption groups, RE:Common, Corner House and Global Witness rose in defence of HEDA Resource Centre and its team as the case took the centre stage in Italy and Holland where for the first time, the governments of those countries saw the rare determination of a Nigerian anti-corruption group that risked everything including their lives for a transparent country where the Federal Government was found wanting and even complicit.
The Malabu case saw at least some $190m paid to the account of the former Nigerian oil Minister frozen by a London Court. Local and international campaigns of the group are deafening. HEDA was at the United Kingdom Parliament to press against aiding of corruption by the international community.
But the tormentors are not giving up. Suraju was wrongly but deliberately accused of forgery. Former Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke petitioned the Inspector General of Police claiming the email linked to him with communication with JP Morgan, the bankers in June 2011 over the OPL 245 deal through the address of a company owned by one of the suspects, was forged. The International anti-corruption consortium in its letter to the IG said it was a ‘story of how false allegations about forgery contained in a complaint to the Nigeria police have been used to target a leading Nigerian anti-corruption group’. The case dragged on, but HEDA Resource Centre was eventually vindicated.
The group is perhaps the only organisation in Nigeria that keeps the most up-to -date information about corruption. One of its comprehensive publications detailed unresolved corruption allegation scandals under various governments including that of President Mohammadu Buhari. The group has published seven editions of 100 high profile corruption cases in Nigeria which when put together would amount to the entire 20 year budgets of some major African countries. Anyone reading the publications is bound to shed tears for Nigeria. It puts together a string of unresolved sleaze amounting to trillions of naira of stolen public funds spanning decades under various governments since 1999 many of which many Nigerians have forgotten. How many would recall the theft of N1.1billion at the Nigerian Maritime Agency,(NIMASA), forfeiture of N754.8m of properties belonging to a NIMASA official or the son of a former Bauchi State Governor who was linked to the theft of N1.1b or a former Accountant General of the Federation linked with another N24b fraud or the case of a Professor who scammed an American knowledge-based company to the tune of $922m or a former Registrar of JAMB put in the dock by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, (ICPC) over N5b theft? The Registrar was docked along with his children.
HEDA Resource Centre reminds all of us about the positive adventure of the EFCC and the ICPC and also their limitations. It brings into eternal memory that corrupt officials may twist the law to escape justice, but history has already taken note of their bitter footprints and that a black book has been opened for generations born and unborn to behold, so that when the story of Nigeria is told and retold, those hawks who worked tirelessly to see Nigeria become the carcass of a beautiful Zebra, so they can feast, will never be absolved by time and history.

Adeoye is a CNN African Journalist of the Year Award Winner and Executive Director, Journalists for Democratic Rights, (JODER)