The federal government, through the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) will on Thursday arraign a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, before a Federal High Court in Abuja.
The EFCC had on March 10 filed six charges bordering on fraud and false declaration of assets against him.
The charges are all in relation to the money recovered from his house in Kaduna on February 3.
Some operatives of the EFCC had 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 sums of foreign currencies amounted to about N3bn.
The ex-NNPC boss, who was arrested by the EFCC in Kano State on February 8, was said to have been moved to the detention facility of the anti-graft agency in Abuja.
Yakubu will be arraigned on Thursday before Justice Ahmed Mohammed, who is also the judge hearing the ex-NNPC GMD’s human rights enforcement suit filed against the EFCC.
According to an affidavit filed on his behalf by his lawyer, Mr. Ahmed Raji (SAN), in support of the fundamental rights suit, Yakubu had admitted to be the owner of the money but claimed that it was a gift he accumulated over a period of about five years, and not proceeds of crime.
In one of the charges filed against the former NNPC boss, the EFCC accused him 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.
Meanwhile, Justice Mohammed, on Tuesday, cut short the hearing of Yakubu’s N1bn suit against the EFCC and adjourned until March 28 for further hearing.
Both the EFCC (the first respondent) represented by Mr. Johnson Ojogbane, and the Attorney-General of the Federation (second respondent), represented by Mr. Tijani Gazali, had urged the court to dismiss the suit.
They maintained that the Federal High Court in Abuja lacked the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the suit since the alleged violation of the plaintiff’s right took place in Kano and not Abuja.
