Saraki Uses Govt. Money To Buy Lagos Properties -EFCC 

Sadik who was giving evidence before the court presided over by Justice Mohammed Liman, in a property forfeiture suit instituted by the EFCC against Dr. Saraki his two properties in Ikoyi, Lagos, said that sometimes in 2009 his boss, who was the Zonal head for the EFCC, Ilorin Zone asked him to join an ongoing investigation of some properties linked to the former Senate President.

The EFCC operative said that he immediately commenced work by inviting one  Mr Bayo Abdulrahaman Daudu of GTB to produce Saraki’s statement of account.

He added that that in the course of his interaction with the said Bayo Abdulrahaman Dauda, he also provided an offer letter for loans by Saraki for the purchase  of the two properties from the Presidential Committee on the sales of Government Properties.

Apart from the offer letter the witness said that there were evidence that the loans were disbursed to the Presidential Committee on Sales of Government Properties with drafts issued to the committee.

The operatives said that apart from his investigative activities with GTBank, he also extended his investigation to the Kwara State Government House, Ilorin by having an interface with one Mr Hafeez Yusuf, a Cashier with the Government House who was persistently withdrawing money from the government house account with Access Bank PLC .

Sadik added that from his investigation and interaction with Hafeez Yusuf revealed that one  Abdul Adama, a domestic servant to Saraki usually and constantly withdraws cash from government and paid to Saraki’s account with GTBank and the same government funds used to repay the loan obtained from GTBank.

The IPO also told the court that several lodgments of funds were made into the account with ‘fictitious names’ which were untraceable. While some were done with a single name.

” EFCC investigation also revealed that Adama was collecting an average of N100 million monthly and depositing same to Saraki personal account which was eventually used to repay the loans obtained from GTB  to purchase the properties in Lagos”.

The investigator added that to beat the anti- money laundering Act, the money was deliberately being structured and this lead the bank to write the Financial Intelligent Unit, FIU, complaining about the way money are being paid into the account.

“The summary of our investigation is that Dr Bukola Saraki obtained loans from GTB to buy the properties, but repaid the loans from money being collected by Abdul Adama, his domestic aide and others unidentified people to repay the loan.

Prior to the investigator’s evidence, a Chief Accountant in Kwara State’s Government House, Hafis Yusuf, told the court his he used to give monies to Abdul Adama, who was Saraki’s Domestic Aide, on the instruction of his boss, Mr. Isiaka Kareem, a former Controller of Account and Finance.

During cross-examination by Dr. Saraki’s lawyer, Kehinde Ogunwomiju (SAN), the two witnesses told the court that they did not have any interface with the former Senate President.

The IPO also told the court that he did not investigated the Kwara State budget, neither did he know what the money was used for.

Upon conclusion of EFCC evidence, counsel to Dr. Saraki, told the court that they relied on the evidence of the applicant (EFCC), for their defence in the suit.

Also, the court also refused the EFCC’s application to subpoenaed one of Dr. Saraki’s allies, Kennedy Izuagbe, to give evidence as to the affidavit he deposed to in response to the suit.

The suit has been adjourned till December 16, 2020, for adoption of parties’ final written addresses in the suit.

But Saraki through his lawyer, Ogunwunmiju (SAN) had told the that he was already a successful businessman with properties worldwide before he came into politics. He told the Court that EFCC must prove to the court that such property was proceed of unlawful act.