EFCC asked me to implicate Jonathan, Adoke in money laundering __Aliyu Abubakar

Jonathan 

Aliyu Abubakar, the property developer, has told a federal high court sitting in Abuja that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission 
(EFCC) asked him to implicate former President Goodluck Jonathan and Mohammed Bello Adoke, former attorney-general of the federation, in money laundering. 

Speaking under cross examination on Tuesday, July, 19, 2022, in the “trial within trial”, Abubakar said Bala Sanga, then-EFCC prosecutor, asked him on December 31, 2019 to claim that he gave Adoke $2o million and Jonathan $50 million “so that I would not be detained into the new year”.

He said he was then forced to sign a prepared statement with the threat that he would be detained on the orders of Ibrahim Magu, who was the EFCC chairman at the time, if he did not cooperate with the agency.

On August 4, 2020, the EFCC had arraigned Adoke (1st defendant) and Abubukar (2nd defendant) before Justice Inyang Ekwo on allegations of money laundering.

The agency alleged that Adoke made a cash payment of $2,267,400 to Unity Bank in 2013 in contravention of money laundering laws.

Adoke in his memoir, said Abubakar had in 2011 offered him a property for N500 million out of which Unity Bank provided a mortgage of N300 million, which was then equal to about $2.2 million.

He said when he could not raise the funds to pay his equity contribution of N200 million, Abubakar refunded the mortgage to Unity, repossess the property and sold it to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2013.

Abubakar refunded the N300 million directly to Unity Bank, Adoke wrote.

However, EFCC’s star witness, Rislanudeen Mohammed, who was the acting MD of Unity Bank when Abubakar refunded the mortgage in 2013, told the court that there was no money laundering involved in the transaction, insisting that it was “transparent and legitimate”.

Although the case before the federal high court does not mention the controversial OPL 245 deal, the EFCC is using the same particulars to prosecute Adoke, Abubakar and others in an FCT high court this time over the oil block.
~TheCable.


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