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NIGERIAN DIPLOMAT ACCUSED OF STEALING CONSULATE FUND
By Chika Onyeani, posted  March 4, 2010

There is a battle going on at the Nigerian Consulate-General in New York as to who is right in a matter that the Consulate-General termed a "stealing", but which the officer involved, since recalled back to Nigeria, termed an "entitlement", which he appropriated to himself without specific approval of the Consul-General.  Nigeria is known for corruption on a subtler substantial basis, but when an individual brazenly decides to appropriate the public's money, that's when you shake your head as to where the country is headed.

This drama started on the 28th of September, 2009, when the alleged officer, Mr. Ahmed Ekpolomo, decided on his own to issue a check in the amount of $35,389.20, and cashing the check on the 30th of September, knowing that the Consulate-General would not be open on the 1st of October, being a holiday for Nigerians to observe Nigerian independence day.  On October 2nd, when the Consulate-General resumed work, a fax from their bank was sitting in the office of the Consul-General, Mr. Ibrahim Auwalu.  He found that a check made out to Mr. Ekpolomo had been cashed two days earlier, and immediately called the bank and raised an alarm, demanding that the money be returned forthwith to the Consulate account.  However, the bank objected to his demands, citing the fact that the check had the requisite two signatories to the account.

Mr. Ekpolomo was the Consul Finance at the Consulate-General, seconded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with a substantive post of Assistant Director on Nigeria's Civil Service Grade Level 15. 

When confronted, Mr. Ekpolomo initially denied taking the money, but when confronted with a copy of the check, he said it was his entitlement.  (African Sun Times obtained a copy of the check).  Then Mr. Auwalu confronted the Head of Chancery for colluding with Mr. Ekpolomo, but the Head of Chancery feigned ignorance of having specifically signed such a check. 

When the African Sun Times asked Mr. Auwalu how he quickly discovered the "theft", here's his answer " AUWALU:  The bank faxes to us on a daily basis the statement of our account, to the fax line right in my office.  So when I came, of course, he timed the cash-in to be on September 30 since he knew we were not going to be in the office on… the 1^st of October, being Nigeria’s National holiday.  So he issued the check to himself, it was dated 28 of September; here is a copy of the check, he didn’t cash the check until the 30^th since we wouldn’t be in on the 1^st and every day the bank faxes to us our statement, daily statement. So when I detected the fraud, I quickly called the officer in charge of Admin who called the Accountant, who declined any knowledge of this withdrawal.  He claimed he was going to check with the bank.  Later on I called him, he repeated the same story.  So I grabbed the new accountant who just took over for him and we went to the bank only for me to see this check issued to him.  So the first thing I did was to tell the officer in charge of Admin because we have 2 signatories and I expressed my disappointment against his signing the check after I had verbally directed him never to make this payment. The Accountant had made a claim that was irregular, that was not authorized by the Headquarters and by me. I referred the matter twice to the Headquarters. Before the final ruling came, which was signed by the Permanent Secretary, personally. Mr. Ekpolomo literally helped himself to the money. I issued him a query, gave him 24 hours to refund the money, he didn’t.  He answered the query and took off to Nigeria, only for me to learn that he had two different answers or versions to the  for the same query. He gave me a different version and had a second version, which was the same one that he gave to the Editor of the paper, based on which these allegations were made. Later on the ruling came in which the Accounting Officer of the Ministry, the Permanent Secretary directed that he should, within 24 hours, refund the money. He still refused.  The thing was just a fraud, of course, everything was wrong with it and of course I will leave the rest to the Ministry/Government to take disciplinary action against him. The officer apparently had an idea that we were buying a property; we got money for the property, and fabricated and was orchestrating the rumor that the property was inflated, a typical Nigerian blackmail tactic.'

However, in a written statement, Mr. Ekpolomo inferred that he must have bamboozled the Head of Chancery into co-signing the check without knowing that he was signing such a check.  According to the written statement, "We were however, taken aback when you said you may need "further clarification" on the clarification.  As you directed that I must hand over the account on 30th September 2009, haven spent less time with my successor who is coming to post for the first time, I submitted my claims for co-signatory to the Head chancery on 28/09/2009 along with other payment vouchers/laser cheques as no "further clarification "on the clarification has been received from headquarters.  As usual, he probably never read the vouchers/cheques on by one, but signed them for payment based on the level of trust and confidence that exist between us."

The "clarification" that Mr. Ekpolomo referred was necessitated by the Consul-General that he must first of all receive an exact instruction from Foreign Ministry headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, on the spurious claims that he had made regarding being paid for domestic allowance, that is a servant or servants he brought to the U.S.  Mr. Auwalu had rejected the claims many times, citing regulations that barred Grade Level 15 officers from receiving such allowances while in post abroad, though they are entitled to such allowances whilst in Nigeria.  He was asked to produce evidence of officers in other Nigerian missions abroad receiving such allowances, and he cited Washington, DC, which denied such payments.

As to the claim that he was entitled to domestic allowance, here's a circular that the African Sun Times obtained, issued by the then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Joe Keshi, who was Nigeria's Consul-General in Atlanta, USA, and then as Secretary to the Presidency/Cabinet.  "My attention has been drawn to an on-going financial impropriety in some Missions reported to be payment domestic servant allowance to officers on salary grade level 15 without obtaining proper approval fro  me as Permanent Secretary.  I should like to mention that there is no provision in the current Foreign Service Regulations for payment of such allowance to officers on salary grade level 15 serving in missions abroad.

2.  The spurious assumption that the circular issued in 2004 by National Salaries Income and Wages Commission on the issue in respect of officers at Headquarters covers the unauthorised payments being made at post is erroneous and amounts to a deliberate misappropriation of government funds, which should invoke appropriate punitive sanctions.

3.  Consequently, all officers at post on above mentioned salary grade level that have been paid domestic servant allowances are by this circular directed to immediately make a refund of the monies collected back to treasury.  Heads of Mission are to ensure that unauthorized payments are promptly recovered and treasury receipts issued, accordingly.  A copy of the treasury receipts should be forwarded to the officer of the Permanent Secretary and another to the Director Foreign Service Inspectorate for records and confirmation of compliance.

4.  With particularly reference to our Missions in Berlin, Geneva, London and Consulate General in New York where arrears of unauthorised payments of domestic servant allowances amounting to huge sums of money were recently collected by unentitled officers, evidence of a refund should be provided within 48 hours upon receipt of this circular."

Mr. Auwalu said he cares  a great deal about his officers, since he himself was an officer in the Consulate-General before becoming the Consul-General, and knows what his officers have to go through, and so he panders to all their needs.  But, he said, in doing so he feels must get the right instructions from headquarters before proceeding on major issues of financial payments to officers.  Hence the signing of checks is between the Head of Chancery and the Accountant.

In his own defense, Mr. Ekpolomo first said he would refund the money in answer to an query given to him by the Consul-General, but in answer to another query issued by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he proceeded to label several accusations of financial impropriety against Mr. Auwalu, relating to the use of an American Express credit card to the tune of half a million dollars, the furnishing of the new Consul-General's house to an amount above that approved by regulations, the sale of four totally giveaway cars belonging to the Consulate-General.

But, according to Mr. Auwalu, "if there was any embezzlement, I would have had to collude with him and the Head of Chancery.  Well, it never happened."

Mr. Ekpolomo is back in Nigeria now, and has returned to the Ministry of Finance.  But he decided to pour kerosene into a burning fire by giving an interview to a Nigerian newspaper based in the U.S. in which he made available many secret files of the Consulate-General.

A three-man African Sun Times group met with Mr. Auwalu in December, 2009, for an exhaustive interview on the accusations labeled against him.  Below is the first part of the interview African Sun Times conducted with him, which is divided in three parts as well as three write-ups.

INTERVIEW WITH MR. IBRAHIM AUWALU: (Part 1)

AST:  I see that you gave an interview to one of the Nigerian newspapers here in the US and he seemed to have been well briefed about the goings-on in the Consulate, especially in terms of the finances, somebody who has access to the finances in the consulate seems to have furnished a lot of information to the paper and a lot of the questions they asked in terms of the purchases and all of that you seemed to have collaborated.

AUWALU:  What happened was, we had an outgoing officer in charge of the Consulate’s accounts.

AST:  What’s his name?

AUWALU:  Mr Ahmed Ekpolomo, who was quoted in the paper; the editor-in-chief of the paper wrote me a letter, that he would want us to write him that we had this allegation made against the consulate.  I said no, no the story would be too lengthy to write, that it was better we arrange an interview.  So we scheduled an interview, on a Tuesday. When he came, the first thing I observed was that coming the same state with the person making the allegation, accusation, Mr. Ekpolomo, was the hostility with which he commenced the interview session, which really took me aback because I remembered the way some papers in Nigeria were conducting their activities. If you are not from their part of the country, then you are always guilty.  Two, I don’t know the relationship between him and Ekpolomo.  He came with such hostility that I thought he was a military man.  He sought to, in a matter of speech, order me around. I was really surprised, I was taken aback.  So I was not surprised when I saw the “product” of the interview because if it was transcribed from the tape, we had a taped-interview, then it was not professionally done.  A lot of things were left out, a lot of grammatical and spelling errors; I had difficulty reading and comprehending what was supposed to be my own interview.  So, I was really disappointed at the quality and the facts presented. What we actually discussed, a lot of things were left out, some things were misrepresented, I don’t know.  But that’s the problem.  What happened was that we had this officer (Mr. Ekpolomo) who was here for 2 years and then was posted back to Abuja because he came from another mission

AST:  Another mission?

AUWALU:  Yes he was cross-posted here and before he left, just a few days before his departure I discovered that our money was missing in the amount of $35,389.20…

AST:  35 thousands?

AUWALU:  …389 dollars and 20 cents. I quickly called the officer in charge of Admin, who said he didn’t know anything about the withdrawal and that he was going to call and find out from the Accountant, Mr. Ekpolomo.

AST:  How did you discover that?

AUWALU:  The bank faxes to us on a daily basis the statement of our account, to the fax line right in my office.  So when I came, of course, he timed the cash-in to be on September 30 since he knew we were not going to be in the office on… the 1^st of October, being Nigeria’s National holiday.  So he issued the check to himself, it was dated 28 of September; here is a copy of the check, he didn’t cash the check until the 30^th since we wouldn’t be in on the 1^st and every day the bank faxes to us our statement, daily statement. So when I detected the fraud, I quickly called the officer in charge of Admin who called the Accountant, who declined any knowledge of this withdrawal.  He claimed he was going to check with the bank.  Later on I called him, he repeated the same story.  So I grabbed the new accountant who just took over for him and we went to the bank only for me to see this check issued to him.  So the first thing I did was to tell the officer in charge of Admin because we have 2 signatories and I expressed my disappointment against his signing the check after I had verbally directed him never to make this payment. The Accountant had made a claim that was irregular, that was not authorized by the Headquarters and by me. I referred the matter twice to the Headquarters. Before the final ruling came, which was signed by the Permanent Secretary, personally. Mr. Ekpolomo literally helped himself to the money. I issued him a query, gave him 24 hours to refund the money, he didn’t.  He answered the query and took off to Nigeria, only for me to learn that he had two different answers or versions to the  for the same query. He gave me a different version and had a second version, which was the same one that he gave to the Editor of the paper, based on which these allegations were made. Later on the ruling came in which the Accounting Officer of the Ministry, the Permanent Secretary directed that he should, within 24 hours, refund the money. He still refused.  The thing was just a fraud, of course, everything was wrong with it and of course I will leave the rest to the Ministry/Government to take disciplinary action against him. The officer apparently had an idea that we were buying a property; we got money for the property, and fabricated and was orchestrating the rumor that the property was inflated, a typical Nigerian blackmail tactic.


Part 2:  APPROVAL AND PURCHASE OF A $5.5 MILLION CONSUL-GENERAL'S NEW HOUSE IN NEW YORK