Police discovers $19,000 in Goje's house

Men of the Nigeria police force who stormed the Abuja residence of Danjuma Goje, the senator representing Gombe central, found cash in sums of $19,000 (N5.8 million) and 4,000 Saudi riyals (N326,000).


They also found cash of N18 million in the Nigerian currency, police sources told newsmen.

Although the police authorities are yet to issue a statement on the Thursday afternoon search, there are unconfirmed reports that they might have been acting on a tip-off.

Newsmen could not confirm these figures officially as the force spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, could not be reached.

Goje, who was governor of Gombe from 2003-2011, was at the national assembly office working on the 2017 budget when the police stormed his residence with over 40 officers.

“Our men were there for between four and five hours and they carried out a thorough search,” the source said.

It was learnt that officers broke down the doors and all the boxes found in the house of the chairman of the senate appropriations committee.

They also went through all the files in the residence.

The family was said to have been traumatised.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was initially thought to be behind the search, but the agency denied any involvement.

EFCC recently recovered $43 million, £27,000 and N23 million in a flat in Ikoyi, Lagos state.

The police are hardly involved in this kind of search on politicians, but it also has a special fraud unit which performs similar functions to the EFCC.