Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf, the personal secretary to President Muhammadu Buhari who is in his 30s, is set to retire with the biggest retirement benefit from loot said to run into billions of dollars.
And to ensure he enjoys his loot, SaharaReporters learnt that Yusuf secured a form of diplomatic immunity from prosecution through his appointment to the National Intelligence Agency, according to sources in the Presidency.
Regarded as one of the wealthiest young men in Nigeria today, Yusuf until his appointment by President Buhari was said to be surviving on proceeds made from the sale of call cards in his native Daura, a sleepy community in Katsina State in the Northern part of the country, which is also the President’s hometown.
He is said to have got the name ‘Tunde’ after being likened to the late Tunde Idiagbon, Buhari’s second in command during his military regime in the early 1980s. Idiagbon was seen by many Nigerians as the de facto leader even though Buhari was the head of state. He was known to be powerful and strategic.
Yusuf is the son of Mamman Daura’s immediate younger sister, Hajia Halima, who died in 2018.
“To ensure he doesn’t get arrested by the EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), Tunde Idiagbon, as he’s popularly known has secured diplomatic immunity by his irregular appoint into Nigeria’s intelligence agency known as NIA and he’s already been transferred to the United Kingdom as his first foreign posting to manage his loot,” a source in the Presidency told SaharaReporters.
As far back as June 13, 2020, SaharaReporters exclusively reported that Buhari’s nephew had envisaged a future away from Nigeria after the President’s tenure so as to evade prosecution.
The newspaper reported that a scandal was brewing in the Presidency after Yusuf Tunde Sabiu was illegally recruited into the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
Sources had told SaharaReporters that Buhari’s nephew got the appointment despite not attending the compulsory training for cadets.
“Meanwhile, another scandal is brewing around Tunde, he was illegally recruited into the National Intelligence Agency but did not attend the compulsory training for cadets.
“He is looking into a future where he can be sent out of Nigeria as soon as Buhari’s regime is over as a way of covering up his massive wealth,” a top Presidency source had said.
About eight months after SaharaReporters’ report, the Peoples Gazette reported the President quietly gifted his unqualified nephew the position of assistant director at the NIA, typifying his cronyistic and nepotistic tendencies.
Like SaharaReporters earlier reported, the PG report noted that Yusuf lacked the requisite field and administrative experience to handle the rigours of the intelligence top job.
It was reported that he had been regular on the job because of his primary duties at the State House and only went to work at the NIA when he desired.
Also, according to sources in the Presidency, Yusuf recently spent $100 million to help Kano-born oil billionaire Alhaji Auwalu Abdullahi Rano, the executive chairman and CEO of holding company A. A. Rano Group, start Rano Air.
Rano Air is a licensed airline, incorporated in 2021 with its operational base in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. When it started, it proposed to operate in Nigeria and beyond but start with eight local stations – Abuja, Kano, Lagos, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Kaduna, Yola and Asaba.
Yusuf ‘Tunde’ Sabiu is said to be the proud owner of several mansions in Abuja.
“He recently shelled out $100 million to help start an airline known as Rano Air according to sources in the presidency and massively invested in fuel stations across Nigeria through the same outfit, Rano Oil,” one of the sources said.
Sources said Buhari’s nephew once had several accounts opened that house billions of naira in Nigeria.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele reportedly got him to reinvest the funds into three new banks,” one of the sources added.
During Buhari’s 77th birthday in December 2019, Yusuf reportedly wore a Patek Phillipe leather wristwatch valued at $99,995.00 – about N36 million at the time.
In June 2020, investigations by SaharaReporters indicated that a Senior Special Assistant to the President (Domestic), Abba Sarki and Yusuf, in collaboration with some Ministry of Power officials had pushed the government to commit to the purchase of a building for the Transmission Company of Nigeria at a grossly inflated price in Abuja.
Despite the Ministry of Works and Housing not giving approval for the purchase of the building, Sarki and Yusuf had pushed their cronies in the Ministry of Power further to actualise the purchase of the property for around N14bn to N17bn – a rate many times higher than the original cost of the building.
The plan, according to findings by SaharaReporters, was to in the end give the presidential aides access to the funds and thereafter give part of the funds to other partakers in the fraudulent scheme before pocketing the rest.
A top source at the Ministry of Power privy to the corrupt scheme gave more insights, saying, “This building is being pushed by Abba Sarki, Senior Special Assistant to the President (Domestic) and Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf for Transmission Company of Nigeria.
“Accordingly, the building will be paid (for) by the Federal Government, so the TCN were not directly involved. The Ministry of Works and Housing did not give the approval to the request by Ministry of Power.
“For TCN, they are comfortable where they are and the current building was built by PHCN/TCN superannuation fund. But the ministry is claiming the building was given to them by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government.
“The Minister of Power now wants to buy Gilmo building, which was a small building that cannot accommodate TCN’s staff at a highly inflated price of about N14bn to N17bn which would go to Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf and Abba Sarki.”
In a memo dated July 19, 2019, and signed by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing before it was split into two, Louis Edozien, the ministry responded to a request by the TCN for a dedicated and convenient office accommodation and thereafter established a joint committee to look it to all relevant issues on the subject.
Insiders informed SaharaReporters that underground moves had been going on to achieve the target by the two aides of President Buhari despite the administration’s claims to be waging a war against corruption and looting of public funds in the country especially by government officials.
