Court orders banks to forfeit Diezani’s $153.3m to FG

Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the temporary forfeiture of the sum of $153,310,000, which a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, allegedly siphoned from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and stashed in three banks in the country.

Out of the allegedly stolen $153.3m, a sum of N23, 446, 300,000 was kept in Sterling Bank Plc, N9,080, 000,000 in First Bank Plc and $5m in Access Bank Plc.

After ordering the temporary forfeiture of the monies to the Federal Government on Friday, Justice Hassan gave Sterling Bank and any other interested party 14 days to appear before him to prove the legitimacy of the monies, failure of which the funds would be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.

The judge made the order in favour of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission which appeared before him on Friday with an ex parte application seeking the temporary forfeiture of the funds.

In a nine-paragraph affidavit filed in support of the ex parte application, an EFCC investigator, Moses Awolusi, claimed that the anti-graft agency discovered through its investigations how sometime in December 2014 Diezani, in collusion with a bank chief executive, hatched the plan on how a cash sum of $153,310,000 would be moved from the NNPC.

According to Awolusi, Diezani instructed the bank boss to ensure that the money was “neither credited into any known account nor captured in any transaction platforms.

Awolusi said the deal was accepted and implemented, leading to the movement of $153,310,000 from NNPC.

He said 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 Fidelity Bank in Lagos.

Awolusi said in a desperate bid to conceal the source of the money, the Country Head of the bank, Mr. Martin Izuogbe, was instructed to take $113,310,000 cash out of the money to the Executive Director, Commercial and Institutional Bank, Sterling Bank Plc, Lanre Adesanya, to keep.

He said the remaining $40m was taken in cash to the Executive Director, Public Sector Accountant, First Bank, Dauda Lawal, 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 Sterling Asset Management Trustees Limited.

He said the $108,310,000 was subsequently changed to N23, 446, 300,000 and saved in Sterling Bank.

Awolusi said the EFCC had recovered the N23.4bn in draft and had registered it as an exhibit marked, EFCC 01.

The investigator said the EFCC had also recovered another $5m out of the money kept with the MD of Access Bank Plc, Mr. Herbert Wigwe.

He said the $5m was recovered in draft and had been registered as an exhibit marked, EFCC 02.

According to him, First Bank’s ED, Lawal, had converted the $40m kept with him to N9,080,000,000.

Awolusi, however, said the EFCC had recovered that also in draft and registered it as Exhibit EFCC 03.

Moving the ex parte application on Friday, the EFCC lawyer, Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, urged Justice Hassan to order the temporary forfeiture of the funds to the Federal Government and to order Sterling Bank and Lawal, who were joined as defendants in the application, as well as any other interested parties, to appear in court within two weeks to show cause why the funds should not be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.

Oyedepo, who said the application was brought pursuant to Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act No. 14, 2006 and Section 44(2)(‘) of the 1999 Constitution, said granting the application was in the best interest of justice.

After hearing him out, Justice Hassan granted the order and adjourned till January 24, 2017 for the respondents to appear in court to show cause why the funds should not be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.