24 July, 2026
Take a long, hard look at the mosque in the picture above.
Now forget, for a moment, who owns it.
Just value it.
If an estate valuer told you this mosque was worth ₦2,450,000,000 (Two Billion, Four Hundred and Fifty Million Naira), what would be your reaction?
You would probably laugh before demanding to see the valuation report.
If a politician built this mosque in his community and claimed it cost ₦2,450,000,000, many Nigerians would immediately conclude that public funds had been looted.
No one would accept such a figure without asking questions.
Now imagine something even more disturbing.
Imagine that the same ₦2,450,000,000 valuation appears in newspapers, television reports and across social media. The media publishes the figure repeatedly without asking the most basic question:
How was this mosque valued at ₦2,450,000,000?
No independent valuation.
No opinion from professional estate surveyors.
No comparative market analysis.
No scrutiny.
Just a headline and a number.
A number repeated so often that it gradually becomes accepted as truth.
Now let me burst your bubble.
The mosque in the photograph is the Rayhaan Bustan Factory Mosque, one of the properties the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) sought to forfeit in proceedings involving former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN.
In its court filings, the EFCC asserted that the mosque was worth ₦2,450,000,000 (Two Billion, Four Hundred and Fifty Million Naira). However, Malami's legal team disputes that assertion. According to the defence, the EFCC merely stated the figure before the court without producing an independent professional valuation by registered estate surveyors and valuers to support it.
If that contention is correct, then Nigerians are entitled to ask a simple question:
On what evidential basis was the ₦2.45 billion figure arrived at?
That question deserves an answer.
Instead, Nigerians were served sensational headlines.
Much of the media repeated the figures with remarkable confidence but little visible curiosity about how they were reached.
That is where journalism fell short.
The constitutional role of the press is not merely to reproduce official claims. It is to interrogate them.
Government agencies are not exempt from scrutiny simply because they are government agencies.
The EFCC is one of Nigeria's most powerful anti-corruption institutions. Precisely because of that power, its claims should be subjected to rigorous examination. Extraordinary valuations require extraordinary evidence.
If the EFCC expected both the court and the Nigerian public to accept its ₦2.45 billion figure, then it should equally be prepared to disclose the evidential basis for that figure.
Was there an independent valuation conducted by registered estate surveyors and valuers?
Was a professional valuation report placed before the court?
If the answer is yes, then let Nigerians see it.
If the answer is no, then the public is entitled to question why such an extraordinary figure was presented and subsequently amplified across the media without demanding equally extraordinary supporting evidence.
Instead, the national conversation became dominated by a single headline: properties worth over ₦200 billion.
Numbers matter.
They shape public opinion.
They influence reputations.
Once repeated often enough, they begin to sound like judicial findings rather than allegations.
That should concern every Nigerian, regardless of political affiliation.
Today it is Abubakar Malami.
Tomorrow it could be another politician, a businessman or an ordinary citizen.
The principle remains the same.
No public institution should expect its assertions to be accepted without question, and no journalist should surrender skepticism at the door simply because the source is official.
The strength of the EFCC should never be measured by the size of the figures it announces, but by the quality of the evidence supporting those figures.
Likewise, the credibility of the media should never be measured by how quickly it reproduces official claims, but by how diligently it tests them.
If the EFCC's figure is supported by credible professional evidence, then it will withstand scrutiny.
If it is not, then scrutiny is precisely what the public deserves.
So, the next time someone tells you that Abubakar Malami possessed properties worth over ₦200 billion, ask a simple question:
According to whose valuation, and based on what evidence?
Those are not questions of politics.
They are questions of accountability.
Until those questions are answered transparently, the figures will continue to invite legitimate public scrutiny.
Because when the media stops questioning power and starts echoing it, it ceases to be a watchdog.
It becomes an amplifier.
And when the media marries the government, absurdity inevitably finds a home in the corridors of power.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
Tags
Opinion