The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has disclosed that it has recovered a sum of $153 million (N62billion) from former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke.
The anti-graft agency also disclosed that it has secured the forfeiture of over $80million (N32 billion) worth of properties owned by the former minister.
The EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa made the disclosure in the April edition of the agency’s magazine — EFCC Alert, noting that his agency has recovered $153 million cash and properties worth of $80 million.
According to Wednesday’s official rate, the total recovered amount might be equivalent to N93 billion.
Bawa was quoted as saying, “There are several cases surrounding Diezani’s case. I was part of that investigation, and we have done quite a lot. In one of the cases, we recovered $153 million; we have secured the final forfeiture of over 80 properties in Nigeria valued at about $80 million. We have done quite a bit on that.
“The other cases as it relates to the $115 million (N46 billion) Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) bribery is also ongoing across the federation. We are looking forward to the time we will, maybe, have her in the country, and, of course, review things and see what will happen going forward. The case has certainly not been abandoned.’’
The embattled Diezani has been on the EFCC’s radar since 2015 over charges of money laundering.
Diezani who fled the country in 2015 following the defeat of former President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll has made global news headlines in the past years for the wrong reasons, bordering majorly on a flurry of allegations of corruption while she superintends over the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, a ministry that’s on its own the heart of the Nigerian economy.
Before his suspension as EFCC Chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Magu had been on Diezani’s trail insisting that she must be extradited back to country. According to Magu, she had stole a whopping sum of $2.5 billion from Nigeria’s coffers.
Recall also that several of her properties have been seized by the court, for being proceeds of corruption.
One of her forfeited properties — six flats of three bedrooms and a boys’ quarter — was handed over by the EFCC to the Lagos State government to be used as an isolation centre for Covid-19 patients.
The EFCC had accused the former minister of fleeing the country for the United Kingdom in order to escape justice.
In 2020, the minister’s husband, Rear Admiral Alison Madueke, in a book titled “Riding the Storms With God On My Side”, said she lost her ability to speak and subsequently fell into a coma due to complications from cancer.
