The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has begun close monitoring of 16 bank executives alleged to have helped top civil servants to launder over N38 billion pension funds stolen from the Federal Government’s coffers.
Already, sources at the EFCC told Scannews, an online news agency that about N50billion was discovered in accounts belonging to one of the principal suspects of the pension fund fraud.
Investigations revealed that over N111 billion of the Police Pension Fund has been recovered by a Task Force, whilst 45 bank accounts used to siphon the funds have been uncovered and action taken.
The six suspects who were arraigned on a 16-count criminal charges bordering on conspiracy and criminal breach of trust include Esai Dangabar, Atiku Abubakar Kigo, Ahmed Inuwa Wada, John Yakubu Yusufu, Mrs. Veronica Ulonma Onyegbula and Sani Habila Zira.
Kigo was the Director of the Police Pension Office, before he was made Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Niger Delta.
While the trial of the suspects commences by the 28th of May, 16 counts have been preferred against the suspects.
The charges read in part: “That you Esai Abubakar, Ahmed Inuwa Wada, John Yakubu Yusufu, Atiku Abubakr Kigo, Mrs. Veronica Ulonma Onyegbula and Sani Habila Zira between January 2009 and June 2011 at Abuja Division of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory agreed to do an illegal act, to wit: criminal breach of trust by public officers in respect of the sum of N14,518,567,724.36 (Fourteen Billion, Five Hundred and Eighteen Million, Five Hundred and Sixty Seven Thousand, Seven Hundred and Twenty Four Naira and Thirty Six Kobo) and that the same act was done in pursuance of the agreement among you and you thereby committed an offence punishable under section 97 of the Penal Code Cap. 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria 2007…”
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