By
Tony Egbulefu
 |
| Babagana Abba Dalori |
By 2010, he was
through with schooling, completed his NYSC and pronto, he hit Abuja.
Dalori found home
in Gwarinpa Estate, nestling way into the estate's inner reaches.
For two years,
Abuja served him a harsh reality check. He pounded the streets of the FCT,
battling lack and joblessness. Faced with the dire choices of either to swim or
sink, he reached into his Sixth Sense for a self-reliance option. It paid off
handsomely, but leaving a path that is today, strewn with wreckage of other
people's destinies.
Now 35, Dalori's
grass to grace narrative aptly brings to memory the Arabian fairy-tale Alibaba
in "Alibaba and the 40 Thieves." The method and tactics are similar;
the point of departure is that rather than thieves, Dalori's casualties on his
way to fame and fortune were trusting and innocent victims.
From a pool of
personal savings and financial help from different quarters, he procured a
commuter tricycle, (Keke NAPEP) in 2012, which he initially operated himself in
Gwarinpa, swallowing the sense of self-worth he earned with his certification
in academics and character in the ivory tower.
As the
disingenuousness in him kicked in, Dalori spurned the path of persevering application
and unravelled as a smart alec.
By sweet-talking
unsuspecting members of the public to pool resources together and procure
tricycles, which he would superintend their management under non-binding
agreement to reward them often with as much as 200 per cent interest on their
capital, Dalori grew the number of his tricycles from one in 2012 to 50 in
2014.
With the killing he
made with the tricycle experiment, he branched into bus commuting, sand mining
and trucking, acquiring over 100 dumper trucks in what was a record time for a
start up.
Four years down the
line, 2016, he formalised his new business forays with the registration of
Galaxy Transport and Construction Company, becoming the Director/CEO and his
widowed mother, a co-director. While the company was not registered as public
liability company, it harvested investment funds from members of the public,
most of whom their knowledge of his businesses is zilch.
Dalori's investment
portfolio continued to expand with the willingness of members of the public to
contribute finances to him in their belief that indeed they will be or already
are part owners of his sprawling business enterprises.
Due to the
mouth-watering returns he made to his investors, Galaxy Transport and
Construction Company easily spread its operations to 11 states of the North,
and Abuja, boasting of investors' profile of 27, 400 as of today, as revealed
by investigators of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC.
Dalori's disguised
intent and true personality began to unfurl to his investors from 2017. Having
amassed astonishing wealth from his investors free money, he decided to treat
them as the suckers they were. He then began a gradual shutdown in payment of
return on investment to his investors.
By the following year,
2018, he had completely turned off the tap on the flow of return on investment
and would not even breathe a word to traumatise investors who made persistent
inquiries as to what had befallen their investments.
At this point,
Dalori had long moved on and was now running an oil and gas entity with his
incorporation of Galaxy Global Energy Limited. Aside this, he told EFCC
investigators that he invested about N400 million to acquire a quarry license
with which he started stone crushing in Mpape, Abuja in 2017.
Others in the
litany of his businesses which evolved entirely from funds from his gamed
investors include: Galaxy Miners Concepts Limited, Galaxy Global Farms, Galaxy
Guest Palace Limited, Galaxy Hospital, Galaxy Computing, Galaxy block making
and Galaxy car wash and real estates.
Comprised in his
realty acquisitions are allegedly, five units of six bedroom mansions, situated
in Police Estate, Gwarinpa, landed properties in Dakwa, Niger State, spread
across three locations, measuring 5.7, 2.5 and one respectively in acres.
In Paiko, a
location after Gwagwalada (coming from Abuja) is 30 acres, he earmarked for
realty and just a distance of about 2km from this, and within the same Paiko is
another 29 acres for realty and 13 acres of farmland.
Further investigations
by the EFCC revealed that Dalori who in 2018, acquired a farmland, measuring
200 acres in Gaube, Kuje, Abuja yet has another land acquisition in Lape
Layout, a little after Ungwa Madaki, Nyanya, Abuja.
Comprised in Galaxy
Global Energy Limited is an array of fuel stations, spread across Northern
Nigeria and three gas plants, located in Bwari, Abuja and in Mab Global
Junction, Galadima, Gwarinpa.
Dalori’s formula is
typical of Nigerian wonder banks- entice hordes of investing public with
fraudulent promises of huge returns on investment- then grab their money and
slam the door shut in their faces.
To suck-in as many
unsuspecting victims as he could into his edifice of corruption, Dalori
employed a massive electronic media advert campaign on the handsome reward on
investment his companies offered.
He moved his
fraudulent marketing pitch some notches further with a financing of "Zero
Hour”, a movie production with a cast of A-list Nollywood and Kanywood actors,
which was a little short of an advertising gimmick to convince unsuspecting
members of the public to invest in his companies.
A victim painfully
concedes that "Dalori's gimmicks paid off as different people took their
hard-earned savings, inheritance, pensions and other sources of income and
invested in Galaxy. He used his investors' money to incorporate different
entities without getting their consent."
Why do Nigerians
still patronise businesses and schemes that promise unrealistic returns on investment
despite the sad lessons from wonder banks and ponzi schemes? Head Advance Fee
Fraud, EFCC, Omar John Sini puts it down to greed.
"Every human
being inherently has some level of greed deposited in him. It's just depends on
how someone can moderate his or her own in order for it not to get the better
part of his or her senses. Instead of people to think before venturing into
something, they venture into it before thinking. So I will say it's greed.
"Galaxy at
some point was giving 200 per cent return on investment. It doesn't make sense.
What was he doing, what was he selling with investors' funds that he would not
only make gains for himself but also make available such capital and interest
to investors. He was just giving it so that they will go and enjoy it and
invite more people. That was why he made it so attractive so that people will
join in their thousands. I tie it to greed and advise that we always think
before we venture into any kind of investment," Sini said.
To prevent further
erosion of his investors’ funds, pending the conclusion of investigations by
the EFCC, all bank accounts belonging to the Galaxy group have been frozen at
the prompting of the Commission, backed by court orders.
By accepting
deposits from members of the public when his company is not a licensed
financial institution, Dalori and his company are in breach of provisions of
Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act.
But the media aide
to Dalori, Mr. Cletus Onoja blamed his principal’s inability to honour his
financial obligation to his investors on the loss of one of his companies'
largest dredgers in his Jere sand mining site in Kaduna State. Another reason
he advanced was the suspension of quarry activities in Abuja since October last
year by the Federal Government, following earth tremors in the capital city.
Dalori in his own
eyes is a philanthropist and self-made made. "I have a mindset to be an
entrepreneur, assist people and provide jobs since there are no white collar
jobs again.
"I started as
a transporter with a tricycle at a Yakasuwa Market, Gwarimpa, Abuja and the
Keke NAPEP business later expanded to 50 tricycles.
“I bought a house
in Gwarimpa and ploughed the money into transportation business. I later sold
the house for N8.2million in 2014 and used the money to diversify into other
businesses.
“Between 2012 and
2014, the businesses boomed as my friends, relations and classmates picked
interest in what I was doing. But natural disaster and flood affected the
businesses in 2018, thereby creating problems for me and the consequent
inability to meet up with the investors,” he told the EFCC.
Remorseless, he
told the Commission's investigators that there was nothing fraudulent in his
ripping off a staggering 27,400 investors in his companies.
"All I was
doing was to assist fellow Nigerians and I have no intention to defraud anyone.
The businesses were okayed and I was paying good returns to the investors
before the natural disaster and floods caused my problems and affected the
investments.”
Distortion of facts
couldn't have been any worse for, while Dalori and Onoja find convenience in
citing a 2018 flood that affected the company's Jere sand mining site and the
Federal Government's suspension of quarrying in the FCT, same year, as reasons for
leaving the companies' investors in the lurch, EFCC's findings establish that a
good number of personal acquisitions including the massive 200 acres farmland
in Gaube, Kuje, Abuja, which Dalori made with his investors' funds were carried
out in 2018.
•
Tony Egbulefu is a staff of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC
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