How Ade Bendel Duped Abba Kyari of N500m

The story of fraudsters in Nigeria, nay Africa cannot be told without two names popping up as the godfathers of the inglorious business, Adedeji Alumile, AKA Ade Bendel and Fred Ajudua, a barrister at law, ironically.

Ade Bendel, who recently lost his wife, Olayinka was the quintessential conman. Good looking, bold and suave, he was so good in the art of defrauding people that he even he defrauded men that ordinarily should instill fear in the heart of people of his trade. One of those Ade Bendel took for a ride and collected a staggering 500 million naira from; back in 1999 was a retired army general and the former governor of the old North-Central State, Retired General Abba Kyari. No, this is not the recently demised Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mallam Abba Kyari. They are not even related. This was an army officer that survived a mutiny by a battalion under his command in the aftermath of the July 1966 Nigerian counter-coup. He subsequently rose to command the Nigerian Army's 1 Brigade and then the army's artillery branch. In July 1967 he was appointed governor of North-Central State under the military government of Yakubu Gowon.

General Kyari was brainwashed into accepting to be part of a wonderful business opportunity that would soon spin billions of profits only if he would invest. Of course, the higher his investments, the higher his share of the profits. Up until his passing on November 25, 2018 at the age of 80 years, he was not able to recover his money from Ade Bendel, who has since said he is now born again, with a church he pastors.

If there was one person that never left Ade’s side even during his incarceration and numerous brushes with the law, it was his late wife, Olayinka, who was the Chief Executive Officer of Yinox Oil. She was reported to have passed in February 2020 after a protracted illness. The one time flamboyant businessman/con artist was said to have been left devastated by the demise of his wife, who also at a point in time was in charge of his Ace Hotel, one of his numerous investments at the height of his fame.

It was not just Late General Abba Kyari that fell to Ade Bendel’s well orchestrated con deals, another military top shot that was also swindled by Ade was an Egyptian army general, Abdel Azim Attia. Ade reportedly duped him of over $605,000 (about N97 million) in 2003. Both were said to have met in Saudi Arabia where Ade sold him the story of an agricultural investment in Nigeria that was going to yield him profits running into several billions of dollars. In fact, according to the Egyptian general, who at some point had to involve President Olusegun Obasanjo, one of the reasons he trusted Ade was because he presented himself as a Muslim brother with the name Dr. Ibrahim Ahmed.

It was all these fraudulent activities that led to his being jailed for 6 years in 2003,it was upon the completion of his term that he came out to declare that he has become born again and subsequently became a pastor.