The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Tuesday said it had made a breakthrough in how over $15bn was siphoned from the account of the Office of the National Security Adviser during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The EFCC, which has frozen the bank accounts of the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, and the account of a company, belonging to the two sons of a former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, said it had recovered evidence of the alleged illegal transactions from the banks.
The bank tellers and other relevant documents, which were made available to The PUNCH, showed that the alleged scam took place between April 4, 2014, and December 15, 2014, when a total of N4.745bn was paid into the Diamond Bank account of Sylvan McNamara.
A document, made available to one of our correspondents showed that Sylvan McNamara was incorporated in November 2011, with the following people as directors: Ikenna Ezekwe, Idowu Oshodi and Elizabeth Adeniyi.
However, the company, on May 7, 2012, passed a resolution that it should open an account at Diamond Bank and have the following persons as signatories – Gbolahan Obanikoro, Babajide Obanikoro, Ikenna Ezekwe and Theresa Matuluko.
Babajide and Gbolahan are the sons of Musiliu Obanikoro, a former minister of State for Defence.
A source at the EFCC said, “The entire fraud started from the company that Obanikoro’s sons were operating. The company was set up by some people but curiously made Obanikoro sons signatories to the account.”
It was learnt that after money was paid into the firm’s account, about N759,384,300 was transferred into the accounts of about six bureau de change operators.
The two bureau de change operators, who received the bulk of the funds, were A. A. G. B.S Oil and Gas and North Line Limited. While A. A. G. B. S received N168m on June 16, 2014, North Line Limited received N835,000 on July 14; N83,750,000 on June 17; N1, 680,000 on September 3, 2014; about N2,325,300 on September 9; N5,932,500 on September 17 and N842,500 on July 30.
A detective at the EFCC added, “The owner of A. A. G. B. S Oil and Gas confirmed to us that the company is a BDC but was only bearing the name of an oil company. He confirmed that he received N168m from Sylvan McNamara and $1m was delivered to Obanikoro in cash while he was the Minister of State for Defence based on the exchange rate at the time.
“Obanikoro acknowledged receipt of the cash and we have recovered evidence. Some of the remaining dollars was received by Obanikoro’s son, Gbolahan.”
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