Eleven days after being appointed as Chief Of Army Staff, General Yusuf Buratai began series of stealing from the Nigerian Army, Pointblanknews.com Investigations reveals.
Evidence of humongous corruption and wrongful conversion of Army properties for personal aggrandizement about within days of appointment on July 13, 2015.
A document (a lodgement Voucher of Skye Bank) obtained exclusively by this medium with the voucher number 6436879 dated August 10, 2015 shows a deposit under the name Tukur Yusuf with account number 1770380452 where the sum of ten million Naira was deposited.
Further investigation revealed that the account witnessed similar lodgement on 24th July 10m, 7th August – 10m, 10th August – 10m, 11th August- 4m and 17th August – 3.279 all in 2015.
More documents exclusively sited by Pointblanknews.com chronicles a web of corruption emanating at the heart of the office of the then Chief Of Army Staff who, against extant laws of the land, was at the head of a property company as a serving government official.
A document of the Nigerian Army Properties Limited with RC: 676953 indicated that Gen. Buratai is the greatest shareholder with 255,000,000 shares from the 8 other shareholders.
The document revealed the Nigerian Army as only having 500,000 out of the Nigerian Army Properties Limited restructured shares of 500,000,000 shares.
The balance of 499,500,000 shares were allocated between Buratai and his proxies. A legal search conducted at Corporate Affairs Commission also further butresses the findings.
The findings clearly shows the personal shareholding for Buratai in Nigeria Army Properties Limited shares with his personal permanent address: c/o Buratai Primary School Biu LGA Borno State.
Was he to represent Nigerian Army, his address would’ve been the Army Headquarters (AHQ) and in normal circumstances, the PSO at AHQ of the relevant department normally represents the Nigerian Army not the Chief of Army Staff.
Evidences indicate that within 57 days of his appointment, General Buratai had his hand everywhere within the Nigerian Army, amassing monies and properties and where he could not do it directly, cronies including his wives and associates were conscripted as fronts.
In another document dated August 20th, 2015 indicates the purchase of a property in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai and his wife, Mrs. Umma Kulsum Tukur Buratai through SIGMA III Limited, a company incorporated in Dubai.
The property, Unit 2711 in TGF Marina Hotel, Dubai, UAE was paid in full using the proceeds of N10million which was taken from the Army.
The document indicated that the sales and purchase Agreement was signed 13/01/2014.
Reports of how Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai admixed his duty to protect Nigeria’s territorial integrity with an appetite for questionable fortune, raking in millions from government contracts in contravention of extant code of conduct regulations forbidding public servants from handling private businesses, except subsistence agriculture, while in service abound.
For instance, according to a special report, Yasiga Nigeria Limited, a company registered in 1996 by Gen Buratai 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 received N49.7 million from the NDDC for unspecified contracts on as far back as April 1, 2014, in gross violation of Section 6 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act.
The firm, according to the report, 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, Buratai, a major-general at the time, transfered N10 million from Yasiga to his personal account.
He was appointed Chief of Army Staff by President Muhammadu Buhari a year later.