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.
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