Aminu Usman, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Remote Sensing and Land Resources Consultant (RESLARC) Ltd, a 1995-incorporated consultancy firm, has continued to withhold a $27,000 payment from P & J Global Consult Ltd., a currency exchange he engaged to make a $100,000 transfer. He was trying to subscribe to cloud-based geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) platform SecureWatch in the name of the Nigerian Army Intelligence Corps (NAIC) in 2023.
SecureWatch provides access to high-resolution imagery and intelligence details to anti-terror agencies across the globe. For NAIC, a unit of the Nigerian Army analysing intelligence, the platform is a critical tool for gathering information about criminal targets.
In February 2023, Usman sought the services of the currency exchange owned by Kalu Jonah to transfer $100,000 to Maxar Technologies operating in Colorado, United States. Maxar owns the SecureWatch platform.
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Usman then deposited the naira equivalent of $65,000 through his company’s FCMB account to the currency exchange. Being a returning customer, he had a gentleman’s agreement with the company to loan him $35,000 to make up the shortfall. He promised to repay the loan once the Nigerian Army paid him the balance of the contract sum.
“We agreed to his request based, first and foremost, on the integrity of NAIC which he presented as RESLARC’s client. Second, Usman is our customer whom we have known and did exchanges with for over a year prior to 2023,” Jonah told FIJ.
Jonah’s company transferred the money to Maxar Technologies’ Bank of America account number in three tranches — $20,000, $30,000 and $50,000 — in the first week of March 2023.
Five months after the transaction was successful, Usman paid N8 million to the bureau de change (BDC) operator. At this time, exchange rate was N1,000 to $1. Since then, Usman has defied all the numerous efforts and attempts to make him pay the balance.
USMAN’S EXCUSE FOR REFUSING TO PAY
Usman had earlier engaged P & J Global Consult in January 2023 to transfer $70,000 to Maxar Technologies. To fulfill that order, Jonah told FIJ, the currency exchange engaged Mustapha Saeed, a third party agent, to process the transaction because dollars were difficult to source at the time.
The third party then engaged Kama Royal Investment Ltd., a company based in Uganda, to conduct payment.
“Saeed engaged Kama Royal Investment Ltd. in Uganda. The Ugandan agent reverted to him that the transaction had been consummated and he forwarded the payment evidence such as outward telegraphic transfer payment advice (OTTPA) to me,” said Jonah.
Jonah then told Usman that the transaction had been successful and sent the available evidence to him.
In May, two months later, Usman disputed the transaction, claiming Maxar Technologies did not receive the money. He said that the transaction had been faked.
“He hired operatives of the Department of State Services to threaten Saeed and collected the $70,000 he earlier deposited to me. Saeed’s business has been in ruins since then,” Jonah added.
After Usman collected the $70,000 in late February, he deducted $5,000 and handed over the remaining $65,000 to the currency exchange to re-process the transaction to Maxar Technologies.
Usman told the agent that the army had not paid his contract sum in full and that he did not have enough money to process the required $100,000. He then leveraged his existing relationship with the money agent to lend him $35,000 and promised to return it when the army paid his balance.
P & J Global Consult trusted Usman and added the requested $35,000 to fulfill the $100,000 payment to SecureWatch’s parent company.
As earlier stated, the currency exchange conducted the transaction of $100,000 in the first week of March without any dispute and he repaid $8,000 in August, leaving the balance of $27,000 unpaid despite demands.
Usman continued to insist that the disputed transaction was fake and that Maxar Technologies invited him to the US in May to explain it. He said that unless P & J Global Consult admitted formally that the transaction was fake, he would not offset the debt.
On the other hand, P & J Global Consult refuted the claim, saying the first transaction was successful and that in any case, Usman had forced the third-party agent to cough up the money. Therefore, he had no basis for refusing to repay the loan.
‘THEY WERE THREATENING TO TAKE ME DOWN’
When contacted on Saturday, third-party agent Saeed said he took a loan to return that $70,000 to Usman because of threats.
“You know it was about the military and they were threatening to take me down. I became so scared and took a loan to refund the money,” Saeed told FIJ on the phone.
“I am 80% sure that the payment was successful. The reason why I can not say 100% is because my agent who consummated it has been in detention for the past three years.
“I learnt that he was deported from Uganda and has been kept in detention by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for the past three years. He is the only person who can be 100% certain that it went through. But he was my partner with whom I had been transacting for some time.”
EFFORTS TO REOVER THE BALANCE
The currency exchange petitioned the House of Representatives and appeared before a committee in November 2023 to intervene in the matter.
“All efforts to get Usman/RESLARC to pay up the balance have fallen on deaf ears,” Jonah told FIJ.
“We have written several letters of demand and reported to the National Assembly to no avail.
“The worst is that Usman scarcely picks our calls and when you visit his office, he is not there. He has not for once explained any reason why we have not been paid except to continue to deceive us with dubious promises of hope every other time.
“The question is: is it that NAIC or the Nigerian Army has not released the money as he made us expect or has he received and diverted the same?”
In a letter from November 7, 2023, Usman said that it was important that Jonah agree to the notion that the disputed transaction was fake to remedy RESLARC’s reputation. He added that Jonah had agreed when they both appeared before the ‘House Committee on EFCC’ that he would write a letter saying that the disputed transaction was fake.
Usman’s letter to P & J Global Consult.
Usman wrote, “It is therefore in your own interest to do the simple task of giving us a letter stating IN CLEAR TERMS, THAT THE SAID $70,000 USD (sic) TRANSACTION MADE BY YOU TO MAXAR USA ON OUR BEHALF IS FAKE and we can revisit the agreed balance payment terms which has (sic) not changed.”
When FIJ called on July 30, Usman refused to comment. He insisted that FIJ visit his office to hear everything about the matter. When told that he could respond to the specific questions sent via WhatsApp, he terminated the call and refused to answer follow-up calls.
Responding on behalf of P & J Global Consult, legal practitioner Ofem Obeten wrote on July 7 that there was no time his client agreed that the first transaction was fake and that he would issue a letter to that effect.
“Firstly, our client denies that the transfer of $70,000 it earlier made on the instruction of RESLARC Nigeria Ltd. to Maxar USA was fake. According to our client, the said transfer was on 23/1/2023 consummated from a Stanbic Bank Uganda account No 9030021333XXX in the name of Kama Royal Investment Ltd and no ambiguity whatsoever arose from it,” Obeten wrote.
P & J Global Consult’s response to Usman.
By that response, the currency exchange notified Usman and his company of its readiness to commence a court action to recover its claim with accruing interests.
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Maxar Technologies did not respond to a list of questions sent on Monday.
FIJ spoke to Nigerian Army spokesperson Appolonia Anele on August 5 for this story. Anele stated that the army had nothing to say because the transaction was not between it and the BDC agent.
“I’ve gone through this story. Obviously, this has nothing to do with the Nigerian Army because the army did not get into any deal with the bureau de change,” said Anele.
“Truly, we have a lot of contractors, and when we give them contracts, how they source funds to execute them is outside our scope. But if there is any complaint or issue that they need us to address, we always do that.”
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