Former Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, is under interrogation by the The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over corruption allegations.
The interrogation had lasted eight hours at of the time of filing this report on Tuesday.
Yari had been invited by the commission to appear for interrogation at its Sokoto office on April 8 but he honoured the invitation only on Tuesday.
The source confirmed that the former governor was still with the operatives of the commission as of 7p.m. on Tuesday having been unable to meet bail conditions.
Yari had faced a long interrogation session at the Lagos office of the EFCC in February over an alleged attempt to move N300 billion illegally from a corporate account in a new generation bank.
Yari, the immediate-past chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) has been under EFCC’s searchlight over his handling of proceeds of Paris Club refunds since 2017.
In a court document filed in 2017, EFCC stated that it received an intelligence in January 2017 alleging “conspiracy, criminal misappropriation of public funds involving the sum of N19,439,225,871.11 out of the Paris Club refunds made by the Federal Government in favour of the 36 states of the federation”.
The commission had in the court filing, sought an order of forfeiture of N500 million and $500,000 allegedly recovered from Yari.
The anti-corruption agency said the funds were found in the accounts of First Generation Mortgage Bank Ltd and Gosh Projects Limited.
It said the sums of money were part of N2.2billion “fraudulently transferred by the NGF to BINA Consults and Integrated Services Ltd on December 23, 2016.”
Following the ex parte application filed by EFCC, the Federal High Court in Abuja, on June 30, 2017, issued an interim order of forfeiture of the N500 million and $500,000.
But, in November 17, 2017, the judge, Nnamdi Dimgba, rejected the commission’s further request for a permanent forfeiture of the funds, and went ahead to set aside the earlier interim forfeiture order.
