Oscarline Onwuemenyi
15 March 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) will on Thursday arraign a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Engr. Andrew Yakubu, before a Federal High Court in Abuja.
The EFCC had on March 10 filed six charges bordering on fraud and false declaration of assets against him.
The charges are all in relation to the money recovered from his house in Kaduna on February 3.
Operatives of the EFCC had stormed a building belonging to the former NNPC boss and recovered the sum of $9.7m and £74,000 stashed in a huge fireproof safe in a slum in Kaduna.
The sums of foreign currencies amounted to about N3bn.
The ex-NNPC boss, who was arrested by the EFCC in Kano State on February 8, was said to have been moved to the detention facility of the anti-graft agency in Abuja.
Yakubu will be arraigned on Thursday before Justice Ahmed Mohammed, who is also the judge hearing the ex-NNPC GMD’s human rights enforcement suit filed against the EFCC.
According to an affidavit filed on his behalf by his lawyer, Mr. Ahmed Raji (SAN), in support of the fundamental rights suit, Yakubu had admitted to be owner of the money but claimed that it was a gift he accumulated over a period of about five years, and not proceeds of crime.
In one of the charges filed against the former NNPC boss, the EFCC accused him of failing to declare the money when he filled his Declaration of Assets form at the EFCC in 2015.
The anti-graft agency also accused the ex-NNPC boss of receiving huge sums of money without going through a financial institution.
One of the charges read, “That you, Andrew Yakubu, on or before August 18, 2015, at the EFCC office at 5 Fomella Street, Wuse 2, Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, knowingly failed to make full disclosure of your assets to wit: the sum of $9,772,800 only in the Declaration of Assets form you filled at the EFCC dated August 18, 2015 and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 27(3)(a) of the EFCC Act 2004 and punishable under Section 27(3)(c) of the same Act.”
Another charge read, “That sometime between 2012 and 2014 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court with intent to avoid a lawful transaction under law, you transported at various times to Kaduna, the aggregate sum of $9,772,800 only when you knew or reasonably ought to have known that the said funds formed part of the proceeds of some form of unlawful activities and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 7(4)(b)(ii) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 7(5) of the same Act.”
Meanwhile, Justice Mohammed, on Tuesday, cut short the hearing of Yakubu’s N1bn suit against the EFCC and adjourned until March 28 for further hearing.
Both the EFCC (the first respondent) represented by Mr. Johnson Ojogbane, and the Attorney-General of the Federation (second respondent), represented by Mr. Tijani Gazali, had urged the court to dismiss the suit.
They maintained that the Federal High Court in Abuja lacked the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the suit since the alleged violation of the plaintiff’s right took place in Kano and not Abuja.
