By Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
If there is one thing every Nigerian is familiar with, it is the epileptic nature of power supply in the country. The national grid has collapsed more times than Arsenal’s title hopes in the last few decades. Successive governments have made promises and failed to address this sector, and for decades, billions have been sunk into the bottomless black hole that Africa’s largest economy somehow functions in. Yet, Nigerians have paid for this darkness through taxes, power bills, generator costs, failed businesses, and lost opportunities. And sometimes, through lost lives too.
Nigerians are all too familiar with the sound of corruption, that roaring sound of generators at night. This week, an Abuja High Court put a face—just one of the many faces—to this sound when it convicted former minister of power, Sale Mamman, on 12 counts of corruption and fraud charges. He is accused of siphoning about N33.8 billion tied to the Mambilla and Zungeru hydroelectric power projects, among others. Following his conviction, Justice James Omotosho ordered that the sentences be served consecutively rather than concurrently, which means Mr Mamman will end up spending the next 75 years in prison. If they had been concurrent, Mr Mamman would have been a free man in seven years. Now, at 68, he faces the dreadful prospect of seeing out the rest of his life in jail.
Mr Mamman was not in court to receive his sentence. He was convicted and sentenced in absentia. Justice Omotosho ordered for his immediate arrest and the seizure and forfeiture of all his assets.
This has to be one of the most unusual corruption cases and convictions in the history of the country. Often, our anti-corruption efforts produce arrests, sensational headlines, public trials, private plea bargains, but hardly any enduring consequence for elite actors. Too often, high-profile convictions collapse on appeal or under the weight of political pressure or are stalled indefinitely. Not this time. Not with this case. Or so it seems.
Sale Mamman, an engineer, was one of those “Buhari’s Angels.” One of those handpicked by the former president after lengthy screenings that gave Nigerians the impression the former president was going to announce a cabinet of divinities as ministers. He was appointed the Minister of Power in August 2019 and served until September 1, 2021.
During his tenure, the power situation in the country, which was really bad before he came on board, only worsened. The country’s fragile national grid suffered around 15 collapses during Mr Mamman’s two-year watch as power minister.
Buhari governed for eight years with an almost monastic resistance to firing ministers, as if they were appointed to him by God himself. So much so that he only found it in his heart to sack two ministers in his eight years as president. One was the Minister of Agriculture, Mohammed Sabo Nanono, and the other, Mr Mamman. Now, in addition to suffering the rare ignominy of being sacked by Buhari, Mr Mamman has suffered a stupendous sentencing the likes of which we have rarely seen in this country. And still has another outstanding corruption case in a separate court.
Is this selective justice? Did Mr Mamman play his politics wrong to be so unfortunate as to be punished in ways others have not? We have seen former Buhari appointees, except in very rare cases, enjoy a level of protection from the ruling APC government of President Tinubu. If he had defected or challenged the president, then perhaps we could make the argument that it is wrong politics. But Mamman is still an active member of the APC. At the end of April, just a couple of weeks ago, while still dodging court over his corruption charges, he had visited the party offices to obtain an expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the governorship of his native Taraba State in the forthcoming elections.
Of course, this conviction sucker punches him out of the race. But his obtaining the forms showed how optimistic he was about escaping justice. It takes a level of audacity for someone who is facing charges like that to continue to pursue elective offices. The sort of corruption Mr Mamman was accused of is not merely a financial crime; it is developmental sabotage. Looted power sector funds are not mere abstract losses floating in the ether but translate directly to the collapse of small and medium businesses, higher production costs for struggling ones, unemployment, healthcare failures, and the attendant loss of lives, and education disruptions, among many others.
Corruption in this country does not end in missing figures on bank balances that emerge in newspaper headlines but in dead factories and collapsing or even nonexistent infrastructure.
The real test here is not the conviction itself because questions remain about whether the ruling will survive an appeal. The question is whether institutions in this country can become stronger than individuals. In handing out this ruling, the judiciary is setting a marker that can become a judicial precedent in dealing with high-profile cases. This act invites challenges from powerful individuals facing similar charges who might attempt to use their influence and power to break the institution rather than suffer the consequences of their actions.
The EFCC should celebrate this as a win. Any act of securing a successful conviction shows a diligent execution of their duty, which we all know has not been stellar. This institution has had a habit of arresting persons before securing evidence and consequently ruining their chances of successfully prosecuting them. A successful case like this could strengthen the institution and show that diligence is key and that the state can allow it to operate unencumbered, that not even politically aligned offenders will be rescued by the deus ex machina of state, swooping in like Greek gods to save the hero from impending doom. Nigeria needs to establish that a functioning and sincere anti-corruption system is not one that occasionally punishes the fallen but one that deters the powerful at all times.
Significantly, this development raises crucial questions about how this conviction raises expectations about this government’s anti-corruption stance. Are these expectations that it will struggle to meet when a favourite, someone closer to power, is in the dock? One thing it establishes is demystifying the shroud of the sacred cows cast over former Buhari appointees on account of Tinubu’s APC seeing itself as a continuum of that administration. If I were you, I would rein in those expectations and observe the field until this case proves to be more than a fluke and establishes itself as a new norm.
The true significance of this ruling is not the conviction of one corrupt public official, or the length of Mamman’s sentence, but whether this signals a transition from symbolic anti-corruption politics to the much-needed institutional accountability that survives administrations, personalities, media cycles, and Nigeria’s peculiar messiness.
This 75-year sentence cannot restore the electricity Nigerians never received, or recover the lives lost on account of it, or the businesses lost to the darkness. But it may, just may, mark the beginning of something Nigerians have long demanded, and that is the possibility that power, and proximity to it, no longer guarantees impunity. It might just be a warning that impunity may finally be getting expensive. After all, Arsenal might just finally win the Premiership. One can never cease to hope.
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim can be reached through abubakaradam@dailytrust.com Twitter: @Abbakar_himself Whatsapp: 08020621270