(NAN)Former Nigerian oil minister,
Diezani Alison-Madueke temporarily forfeited $153.3 million to the
Nigerian government today.
This was sequel to an order by a
Federal High Court in Lagos.
The seized money, according to the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was stolen from the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation and stashed in three banks in Nigeria, in US dollars and
Naira.
Out of the loot, N23.4
billion was kept in Sterling Bank Plc. The sum of N9.08 billion was
kept in First Bank Plc and $5m in Access Bank Plc.
Justice Muslim Hassan, who
gave the order, gave Sterling Bank and any other interested party 14 days
to appear before him to prove the legitimacy of the monies, failing which the
funds would be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria
The judge made the order in favour
of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission which appeared before him today
with an ex parte application seeking the temporary forfeiture of the funds.
In a nine-paragraph affidavit
by by EFCC investigator, Moses Awolusi and filed in support
of the ex parte application, the anti-graft agency discovered how
sometime in December 2014 Diezani invited a former Managing Director of
Fidelity Bank Plc, Nnamdi Okonkwo, to her office. There they hatched the
plan of how $153,310,000 would be moved from NNPC to Okonkwo to be saved
for Diezani.
Diezani, according to Awolusi,
instructed Okonkwo to ensure that the money was “neither credited into any
known account nor captured in any transaction platforms” of Fidelity Bank.
Okonkwo accepted and implemented the
deal leading to the movement of $153,310,000 from NNPC to Fidelity Bank.
He averred further that two
former Group Executive Directors of Finance and Account of NNPC, B.O.N. Otti
and Stanley Lawson, helped Diezani to move the cash from NNPC, Abuja to the
headquarters of Fidelity Bank in Lagos.
Awolusi said in a desperate bid to
conceal the source of the money, Okonkwo, upon receiving it, instructed the
Country Head of Fidelity Bank, Mr. Martin Izuogbe, to take $113,310,000 cash
out of the money to the Executive Director, Commercial and Institutional Bank,
Sterling Bank Plc, Lanre Adesanya, to keep.
He said the remaining $40m was taken
in cash to the Executive Director, Public Sector Accountant, First Bank, Dauda
Lawal, to keep.
The investigator said out of the
$113,310,000 handed over to Adesanya, a sum of $108,310,000 was invested in an
off balance sheet investment using Sterling Asset Management Trustees Limited.
The money was was subsequently
converted into N23.4 billion and saved in Sterling Bank.
Awolusi said the EFCC had recovered
the N23.4bn in draft and had registered it as an exhibit marked, EFCC 01.
The investigator said the EFCC had
also recovered another $5m out of the money kept with the Managing Director of
Access Bank Plc, Mr. Herbert Wigwe.
He said the $5m was recovered in
draft and had been registered as an exhibit marked, EFCC 02.
According to him, First Bank’s
Executive Director, Lawal had similarly converted the $40m kept with him
to N9,080,000,000.
Awolusi, however, said the EFCC had
recovered that also in draft and registered it as Exhibit EFCC 03.
Moving the ex parte application
today, the EFCC lawyer, Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, urged Justice Hassan to order the
temporary forfeiture of the funds to the Federal Government and to order
Sterling Bank and Lawal, who were joined as defendants in the application, as
well as any other interested parties, to appear in court within two weeks to
show cause why the funds should not be permanently forfeited to the Federal
Government.
Oyedepo, who said the application
was brought pursuant to Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related
Offences Act No. 14, 2006 and Section 44(2)(‘) of the 1999 Constitution, said
granting the application was in the best interest of justice.
Justice Hassan granted the
order and adjourned till January 24, 2016 for the respondents to appear in
court to show cause why the funds should not be permanently forfeited to the
Federal Government of Nigeria.
