Ex-Nigerian oil firm boss in R132m probe
A FORMER head of Nigeria’s state-run oil firm is under investigation after almost $10-million (R132-million) in cash was found at a property he owns.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it had seized $9.8-million (R129-million) from a house belonging to Andrew Yakubu.
A further $92,700 (R977 000) was also found at the property in the northern city of Kaduna.
Images of the money – stacked in neat bundles and allegedly discovered in a safe – have featured prominently in the country’s media.
Nigeria is in recession and desperately in need of cash, having been hit hard by the slump in global oil prices since mid-2014 that has squeezed revenue and pushed up inflation.
Politics watchers have pointed out the money could have financed a string of much-needed conventional and renewable power projects outlined in the 2017 federal budget.
EFCC spokesman Wilson Uwujaren refused to be drawn on what would happen next.
“We are still investigating the matter,” he said. “At the end of our investigation we shall decide on our next line of action. Nothing is ruled out.”
Yakubu has denied any wrongdoing. He admitted the money belonged to him but said it was a gift from friends.
He was the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from 2012 to 2014, having been appointed by then president Goodluck Jonathan.
In early 2014, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, outraged Jonathan and his government, claiming the NNPC had failed to remit $20-billion (R264-billion) in revenue.
The allegation of corruption cost Sanusi his job.
Jonathan and his oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, repeatedly maintained that nothing like $20-billion was missing.
Yakubu was dismissed in 2014. Critics said he did little to clean up the NNPC’s reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt state oil firms.
Since coming to power in May 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari has made it his mission to reclaim what he says were mind-boggling sums of looted public cash.