Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency has arrested former Power Minister Saleh Mamman in the early hours of Tuesday, nearly two weeks after an Abuja court sentenced him in absentia to 75 years in prison on 12 counts of corruption linked to the diversion of funds meant for two major hydroelectric power projects. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said Mamman was tracked down in Kaduna state after weeks of surveillance, having gone into hiding immediately after the conviction.
The EFCC said in a statement that the arrest was a deliberate message that no individual, however highly placed, could evade justice by disappearing. “For us, getting the convict to serve his jail terms is extremely important in view of the seriousness with which we are tackling corrupt practices,” said EFCC chairman Ola Olukoyede. The former minister, who served under former President Muhammadu Buhari between 2019 and 2021, was described by the trial judge as having orchestrated one of the most brazen cases of public fund diversion seen in Nigerian courts in recent years.
How the Fraud Was Carried Out
According to court documents, Mamman and his associates siphoned at least 22 billion naira — approximately 4 million or £10 million — from budgets allocated for the renovation and expansion of two hydroelectric dams in northern Nigeria. The judge said proxy companies and shell corporations controlled by the former minister and his close associates were used to award inflated contracts, with portions of the money then redirected into private accounts. The prosecution successfully demonstrated that the power projects — which would have added several hundred megawatts to Nigeria’s national grid — were either never completed or completed at a fraction of the contracted cost while the full budget was exhausted.
Mamman’s conviction has struck a particularly raw nerve in Nigeria, a country where chronic power shortages affect hundreds of millions of people and businesses routinely operate backup generators due to unreliable grid supply. During his tenure as power minister, Mamman publicly promised a transformation of Nigeria’s electricity sector, making pledges that now ring hollow given the scale of the fraud uncovered. Nigeria generates far less electricity than its population and economic size would suggest, and the gap between promise and delivery has long been attributed to a combination of infrastructure decay, policy inconsistency and, increasingly, high-level corruption.
The judge handed down sentences across all 12 counts, with the terms running consecutively rather than concurrently — a sentencing structure that effectively guarantees the former minister will spend the remainder of his life behind bars. In addition to the 75-year term already served, Mamman faces a separate indictment in Abuja involving alleged fraud to the value of 31 billion naira, with a separate arrest warrant issued earlier this month after he again failed to appear in court.
A Rare Conviction at the Top Level
Nigeria has seen numerous anti-corruption cases opened against senior officials over the past two decades, but convictions at the level of a cabinet minister remain rare. Successive administrations have talked tough about rooting out corruption, but critics say the enforcement record has been inconsistent — often deployed selectively against political opponents rather than applied uniformly. The conviction of a serving or former minister with an active sentence is unusual enough to draw attention from governance advocates who have long argued that the EFCC and other agencies lack the political independence needed to pursue the most powerful figures.
Mamman’s arrest this week, however, may represent a shift in the way convictions are followed through. EFCC sources say the agency deployed specialised teams to track the former minister after intelligence suggested he had been moving between properties in Kaduna and Kano states to avoid detection. The operation was described as “textbook” by one senior official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Whether the case signals a genuine change in enforcement culture or is simply an isolated instance remains to be seen — but for millions of Nigerians who continue to live with unreliable power supply and crumbling infrastructure, the Mamman case is a reminder of how much is lost when the people tasked with solving the problem are themselves part of it.