The Shadow List Todd Moss 353 G.P. Putman & Sons, New York Theophilus Abbah

is Queen Sheba, a vicious criminal go-getter who could eliminate all those who stand in the way of the Russian’s desire to take control of the global oil trade. Jessica obtains the list of those being targeted for elimination. Shockingly, instead of Chinese competitors, the high target on the list is a Nigerian anti-corruption czar, whose enthusiasm and resilience has made it difficult for even compromised government officials to enjoy their stolen wealth. His name is Bola Akinnola who has “been building cases and kicking in doors. He even took down a corrupt governor in Nigeria who was skimming millions off the state budget.” (page 103). Actually Bola Akinnola is a fictional character who captures the essence of the anticorruption battle fought by Malam Nuhu Ribadu, a former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Jessica is piqued by the inclusion of Bola Akinnola on The Shadow List because in the State Department this Nigerian is an invaluable resource in the United States’ effort to rid Nigeria of corruption. For The Bear to target him for assassination is an indication that Akinnola is a threat to the Russian criminal network in the oil industry. If the assassination effort should succeed, the US State Department would have lost a crucial partner in the war against graft in the country. Instead of playing the Queen Sheba role for The Bear, Jessica flies to Nigeria to protect Akinnola from being assassinated by The Bear’s network. She meets her husband who is assigned the role of negotiating the release of a basketball legend, Tunde Babatunde, who is kidnapped in Lagos traffic. As it is with every thriller, Judd and Jessica wriggle through impossible challenges to live and return to the United States against all odds.

Todd Moss’ style facilitates quick reading. His fast-pace simple and compound sentences; his straight-to-the-point dialogues and shock-filled plots keep the reader glued to the novel from sunrise through sunset and over the night till the break of dawn. The story line is an excursion into the world of investigation in global security and intelligence community. The admixture of smart human intelligence and data analyses provide insight into the activities of those in the criminal underworld and facilitate the efforts by Judd and Jessica to unravel the jigsaw.

One idea that Moss brings out clearly is the relevance of effective internal security intelligence in dealing with such a global network. Though Judd and Jessica are scholars and undercover agent respectively, their success in exposing the criminal network depends largely on the integrity, perspiration and commitment of Bola Akinnola, the Nigerian anticorruption judge, in ensuring that corrupt politicians and government officials do not prevail in his court. He supplies the vital links with the networks that lead to the uncovering of the links between the global criminal network controlled from Russia and their local collaborators. Judd describes Akinnola’s role in the investigative effort in a dialogue thus:

“Bola Akinnola is one of our allies. He’s the one fighting against the cartels and the corrupt politicians. He is standing up for democracy. For everything we’re trying to do in Nigeria. We can’t give up on him now that his own government is trying to kill him.” (Page 171)

As acknowledged by Moss, this work was inspired by the leadership and achievements of Malam Nuhu Ribadu while he was the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Several elements in the story prove this, among them the capture of a Nigerian governor, the haunt down of Advance Fee Fraud kingpins, the arrest of Yahoo Boys, the never-say-die courage of the anti-corruption judge, and the fact that at a point in his career as the EFCC boss, Nuhu Ribadu, like the fictional Akinnola, was even accused of corrupt practices. The fact that he (Nuhu Ribadu) had worked hand-in-hand with the American intelligence community is apparent in the storyline, as the kind of insight The Shadow List provides about corruption in Nigeria can only be gathered by an insider in the anti-corruption war in the country.

The Shadow List does not just make an interesting reading. It also brings a new perspective to the besetting problem of corruption in Nigeria. For the first time, a book makes it clear that corruption, which is perceived as a local problem, has an international dimension that overwhelms our local security operatives. In order to deal with the situation, Nigeria’s anti-graft bodies would need to change their thinking cap to a bigger one. They need to widen the extent to which they collaborate with other intelligence agencies in order to prevent the fire stoked in other parts of the world from consuming Nigeria.