The Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission has arrested two sons of Jigawa state governor, Sule Lamido, over an
alleged N10billion fraud.
Aminu and Mustapha Lamido
were arrested Thursday in Kano and flown to Abuja on Friday morning, and are
currently being interrogated at the EFCC headquarters in Abuja by a crack team
of detectives.
The arrest of the governor’s sons,
insiders say, is in furtherance of the investigation that commenced in December
2012 when Aminu Sule Lamido was arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano Airport en
route Cairo, Egypt for failure to declare the $50,000 he had on him.
Although Aminu has since been
prosecuted and convicted by a Federal High Court in Kano, investigation as to
how he came by the money has led investigations to uncover a web of money
laundering in which billions of naira from Jigawa state government accounts are
funnelled into the accounts of companies run by the Jigawa state governor and
his two sons.
Over N10billion is said to have been
transferred from Jigawa state government accounts into the accounts in which
Sule Lamido and his two sons have interest from 2007 till date.
The Commission is said to have traced
these transfers to 10 companies where Lamido and sons are directors and
signatories to the account.
The companies include Bamaina
Alluminium Limited, Bamaina Holdings Limited, Bamaina Company Nigeria Limited,
Rawda Integrated Services Limited, Speeds International Limited and Saby
Integrated Nigeria Limited.
The account of these companies
received huge cash inflow between 2007 and 2013, a period that coincide with
the tenure of Sule Lamido as governor of Jigawa state. For instance in Bamaina
Aluminium where Sule Lamido and his two sons are directors, investigations
revealed that the company’s account controlled by Mustapha as signatory
received total credit of N1.52billion between January 2010 and August 2013. It
recorded a total debit of the same amount, with Mustapha and other companies in
which Lamido and his sons are directors, being the beneficiaries.
In the same vein, Bamaina Holdings
Limited’s account with the governor as sole signatory received a total of
N1.19billion between February 2007 and July 2013.
About N1billion was paid from this
account into accounts of companies controlled by the governor and his sons.
Massive lodgements were also
discovered in the account of Bamaina Company Nigeria limited controlled by
Mustapha as sole signatory from Bamaina Alluminium. Between January 2010 and
July 2013, the account received over N500million.
From the account of Rawda Integrated
Services Limited controlled by Mustapha, there have also been massive movement
of funds to another company run by Sule Lamido, Speeds International Limited.
Speeds’ account recorded a turnover ofN2.2billion between January 2007 and
February 2010.
In the account of Rawda with a new
generation bank investigators discovered the movement of N2.6billion to an
unknown signatory.
That account recorded over one
hundred withdrawals running to over N600milion in cash between November 2007
and April 2008.
Saby Integrated Services Nigeria
Limited, another company owned by Lamido received over N730million from several
Jigawa State government agencies between June 2010 and August 2010.
Source: Premium Times
1 comment:
Corrupt law must surely have corrupt society...no wonder...... when somebody carted away billions of dollar from public money...and comes back to the same public without any deterrent or remorseful consequence...and even celebrated by the same public for his escape from justice.....! what do you expect..?
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