SAN FRANCISCO, September 20, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari is said to have been provided with concrete evidence that his Chief of Staff, CoS, Abba Kyari, collected N500m from operators of MTN to help the South African telecom company get a soft landing in the hefty fine imposed on it by the federal government
THEWILL recalls that after eight months tussle, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, reduced the whopping N1.04 trillion fine it imposed on MTN Nigeria for failing to disconnect unregistered SIM cards. The fine was in June scaled down to N330bn in a staggered form, to be paid within a time limit of three years, and that the company will be listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange, NSE, as soon as it is commercially and legally possible to do so.
According to SaharaReporters, the evidence was presented to President Buhari several times including during the Sallah holiday. Kyari reportedly claimed he was helping the All Progressives Congress, APC, raise funds for the gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State when confronted with the evidence.
But Buhari responded to this by asking him if he was the party chairman, but allowed Kyari to remain in the highly influential and powerful office.
Several corrupt actions of the Chief of Staff have been reported by the online medium and they include: taking money from Jide Omokore, a businessman who was massively involved in corruption in the oil sector in the preceding administration.
Following the acceptance of the money, Kyari reportedly took Omokore twice to meet the President to enable the businessman make a promise to refund some of the funds – to which a promise to refund N500 million was made.
When Omokore was eventually arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, the CoS reportedly told Buhari that it was the EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu, who had bungled progress concerning Omokore.
