Buba Gyang

Customs Comptroller General (CG), Buba Gyang, had been fired by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, following his indictment by the Presidential Panel on Concession and Waiver. He is replaced with Assistant Comptroller General (ACG), Hamman Bello Ahmed.

President Yar’Adua had set a probe panel to investigate the indiscriminate award of waiver and concession by Gyang in his four years reign which is said to have cost Nigeria a whooping N20 Billion. Mr. Gyang was appointed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in March 2004.

The waivers were said to have been granted to the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Chief Mike Adenuga, Saminu Turaki and Mr. Donald Duke.

According to the impeccable source, the duty waiver granted Adeboye was said to have been used “dishonestly” by the church to import luxury Sport Utility Van, SUV (usually called Jeep in Nigeria), building materials and Digital Recording equipment some of which were said to belong to top members of the church both within Nigeria and abroad. In other words, the source surmised that Adeboye used his high level connections to “aid and abate” his church members to defraud the nation by not paying the requisite importation fees.

The source said that many of the RCCG’s faithful in Nigeria and abroad had celebrated the “unlawful act” as a “testimony to the goodness of the lord.” It was said that a Pastor Ghandi of the Jesus House, RCCG in Washington DC where the late first lady Mrs. Stella Obasanjo used to worship whenever she was in the United State, was a facilitator of the deal.

Many of the luxury cars that were said to have been imported through the deal were not meant for private use. They were said to have been sold at several car dealerships across the country. The source explained to pointblanknews.com that even if the items were not traded, it was unheard of that “people would import duty-free luxury items into any country.”

The official did not rule out the possibility of a thorough investigation of the deal which he said could make Adeboye to pay and possibly face charges.

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A document made available to pointblanknews.com indicated that in 2006, RCCG got an import waiver of N9,831,109,309.00 through certificate no.,BO/REV/12235/S.2/T.133 to import construction materials; generators and vehicles. The value of the imports was N49,155,546,846.00.

In 2007, another import waiver was granted. This time through a certificate number BO/R10260/V111/161, RCCG was granted rights to import building/construction materials with value put at N48,988,454,876.00 with a total waiver of N9,757,690.975.20. The two waivers total N19,588,800,284,20, while the bulk transactions amount to N98,144,347,130.20.

Also 300 luxury cars with value put at $6,923,000, 100 Jeeps (SUV) valued at $8,000,000, Video Equipment valued at $12,000,000.00, were all part of the shady import deals.

It would be recalled that the comptroller General of Nigerian Customs Services, Mr. Jacob Gyang Buba had been investigated by the independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC in connection with an annual loss of N50 Billion in respect of the importation tariff waiver introduced by the Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The spiritual depth of some practices of the RCCG has been subject of concern amongst growing conservative Christian worshippers. Adeboye is often criticized for being interested in quantity and not quality. He is said to have broken his church to model parishes were prosperity theology is often preached. The other class of followership is usually called Redeemed Classical. They are more mortified and often completely scriptural. Apart from Adeboye’s too cozy with the high and mighty elite, he was said to have given tacit blessing to ex-president Obasanjo’s third-term Presidential dream that was truncated with sudden humiliation.