Babachir Lawal, former secretary
to the government of the federation, is currently in the custody of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The EFCC Acting Head of Media and
Publicity, Mr Samin Amaddin, confirmed this to Channels Television on
Wednesday.
Mr Amaddin said the former SGF is
cooperating with investigators and has been making useful statements.
He added that his interview with
the anti-corruption agency would continue on Thursday.
A source who prefers not to be named said Lawal arrived at
the commission’s headquarters in Abuja around 11am, after which he was
interrogated.
The source said the former top
official in the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari would spend the
night in the office of the anti-graft agency and his interview with the
officials would continue around 11am on Thursday.
The development comes 24 hours
after ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo accused Buhari of shielding his corrupt
allies.
Lawal’s travails began on
December 14, 2016, when the senate ad-hoc committee on ‘mounting humanitarian
crisis in the north-east’ indicted him of fraud in a contract awarded for the clearing
of “invasive plant species” in Yobe state, through the Presidential Initiative
on Northeast (PINE).
PINE, which was under Lawal, was
at the time unable to account for N2.5 billion allocated to it for the
alleviation of the IDPs’ suffering.
Lawal’s crime, according to the
ad-hoc committee, included his alleged spending of N570m to cut grass.
Rholavision Engineering Ltd, a
company owned by him, was also said to have got suspicious payments of N200m
from the contract.
Rholavision’s bank statements and
other documents obtained by TheCable at the time had shown how Josmon
Technologies Ltd, a company that got the contract from PINE to clear grass for
N248, 939, 231, made cash deposits of N10m into Lawal’s company’s account 20
times from March 29.
Although the former SGF had
claimed that he resigned from his company on August 15, 2015, and as a result
was not a party to whatever business it contracted, TheCable had also confirmed
from a document from the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) that he was a
director of Rholavision until September 16, 2016, when he wrote to the
commission informing it of his intention to relinquish 1,500,000 ordinary
shares.
After sacking him in October,
Buhari said he expected anti-graft agencies to go after him.
Fake move...
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