Cousin of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) has been alleged to have misappropriated a whooping sum of $40 million meant for communication kits.
Azibaola Robert and his wife, Stella were accused of diverting the $40m ostensibly meant for the supply of tactical communication kits for Special Forces at a Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja on Friday in the lingering case.
Investigation reveals that the money was transferred from the account of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the domiciliary account of their company, One Plus Holdings.
Tenth prosecution witness, David Nkpe told the court that analysis of documents relating to One Plus Holdings Nigeria Ltd showed that the company actually received the $40m from the account of Office of the National Security Adviser with the CBN.
According Nkpe, the investigation was extended to the National Security Adviser Office to ascertain the purpose for which the payment was made.
“EFCC wrote to ONSA to avail them with documents regarding the payment mandate and the reply came”, said Nkpe.
“We investigated the utilisation of the funds and discovered that the funds were transferred to other companies including Bureau de Change and some of the funds transferred offshore to countries like London and United Arab Emirates,” he further stated.
When Nkpe was asked if he could recall some of the beneficiaries of the communication kits money, “there were several of them,” he said, adding: “but I remember that $6.6 million was transferred to a company called ‘Karahyna’ between October 2014 and April 2015, which was specifically done in eight tranches”.
“I also recall that the sum of $1.5 million was transferred to ‘Reya Telecommunication’ which is a company under One Plus Holdings group.
“Another sum of $1.493million was transferred to ‘Kakatar El Ltd’ which is also a company under One Plus Holdings; a sum of $2 million was transferred to ‘Capitafield Investment Ltd’ and another $330,000 transferred to a company called ‘Teledom’,” Nkpe further witnessed.
“Most of the companies that received the money did not supply any goods,” he added.
Nkpe said the analysis carried out on One Plus Holdings account on September 9, 2014 showed that the $40m communication kits money received was the only major inflow into the account, and that from the time of that receipt, all the transactions in the account were outflows, which is the distribution of the said $40m.
He said the credit balance in the account before the transaction was $17,277.50.
Thereafter, documents were presented and admitted as exhibits including: petition from the ONSA to EFCC as exhibit ASO 16 (1&2), Search warrant dated March 23, 2016; two power of attorney as exhibit ASO 18a &18b; Deed of Assignment as exhibit ASO 19a, 19b, 19c; transfer mandate from One Plus Holdings to Zenith Bank as ASO 20 (1-39); the two statement of the first defendant dated March 23 & 24, 2016 marked as exhibit ASO 21a & ASO 21b.
Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court then adjourned the case to July 7, 2017.