The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has slammed six charges against a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu.
The charges bordered on fraud and false declaration of assets.
On February 3, 2017, operatives of the EFCC 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 ex-NNPC boss, who was subsequently arrested by the EFCC, was said to have admitted being the owner of the money but claimed that it was a gift.
In one of the charges filed before a Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday, the EFCC accused Yakubu 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.”
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