Diezani forfeits N35b to FG

 

   Former Nigerian oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke yesterday temporarily forfeited  $153.3 million  to the Nigerian government. 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, another  N9.08 billion and $5m were kept in three different Nigerian banks. Justice  Muslim Hassan, who gave the order,  gave the banks 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 EFCC which appeared before him yesterday with an ex parte application seeking the temporary forfeiture of the funds.

   In a nine-paragraph affidavit by an 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 one of the banks to her office. There,  they allegedly 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 the bank.

The bank chief accepted and implemented the deal leading to the movement of $153,310,000 from NNPC to his 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 the 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 the bank, to take $113,310,000 cash out of the money to the Executive Director, Commercial and Institutional Bank, of another bank, to keep.

He said the remaining $40m was taken in cash to the Executive Director, Public Sector Account, of an old generation bank, 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 the Asset Management Trustees firm of one of the first three banks.