Sambo Maina, a prosecution witness in the case of money laundering and false declaration of assets involving a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, GMD NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, on Thursday, May 10, 2018 narrated how the defendant concealed the sum of $9,772,800 found in his apartment in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s Asset Declaration Form.
Maina, an operative of the EFCC, stated this while testifying as the fourth prosecution witness before Justice A. R. Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
He also told the court that the former NNPC boss also failed to declare the sum of £74,000 (seventy four thousand pounds sterling) found in his building to the EFCC in the said form.
While narrating how EFCC came about the ‘Declaration Form’, Sambo said: “We commenced investigation into two categories of NNPC contract. The contracts were awarded by NNPC and its subsidiaries. .
.
“The first category of the contract relates to strategic alliance agreement between the NNPC, its subsidiaries NPDC (Nigerian Petroleum Development Company) and Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Ltd. .
“The first strategic alliance agreement was on oil mining lease 26/30/34/40/42 and the second contract was on oil mining lease 60/61/62/63.”
He added that the investigation was sequel to intelligence report received by the EFCC relating to suspicious fund transfers from the Nigerian account of Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept to its sister company in Switzerland called Atlantic Energy Holdings, including additional transfers from Atlantic Energy Brass Development Ltd to Atlantic Energy Holdings.
“It was on the basis of this suspicious transaction that investigation commenced. In the course of our investigation, we found it necessary to seek clarifications from Engineer Andrew Yakubu and he was invited to EFCC,” Maina said.