EFCC
finds over N2.5billion in account of Senator Stella Oduah's maid
- The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has discovered a bank account with huge sums of stolen funds
- The account has at least N2.5billion opened in the name of an Stella Oduah’s housemaid
- Oduah, a former aviation minister is currently a serving Senator representing one of the three Senatorial Districts of Anambra state
Investigators at the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission are of the view that the bank account was opened by
Stella Oduah, who used her housemaid as the account owner in order to prevent
anybody from knowing she was the real owner of the allegedly stolen
N2.5billion.
New information coming in has it
that two senior EFCC sources explained that the bank account and its huge
deposits was opened and operated without the knowledge of the former minister’s
housemaid, saying “Senator Oduah
apparently opened the account with her housemaid’s name, image, and details
without the housemaid knowing about it.”
Another EFCC source told
SaharaReporters that Ms. Oduah had been going around to some top officials of
the Muhammadu Buhari administration seeking their help to scuttle her impending
trial. Last week, she asked for a meeting with EFCC chairman Ibrahim Magu,
claiming she wanted to meet in her official capacity as a senator. According to
SaharaReporters, two officials of EFCC who spoke on the “housemaid” account
revealed that Ms Oduah was the single signatory to the account, adding that
they were still connecting the dots to uncover how the former minister managed
to pull off such a money laundering strategy.
“As
of last week, the account was still active and contained over N2.5 billion,” said one of the EFCC sources, adding that he was not sure if
the EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu, who is presently traveling in Saudi Arabia for
lesser hajj, had directed the freezing of the account. One of the anti-graft
sources revealed that the discovery of the “housemaid” account is an indication
that Ms Osduah could have laundered as much as N5.6 billion so far from the
aviation ministry’s budget during her time as minister.
Stella Oduah, former minister of
aviation and presently a senator at the National Assembly representing one of
the three Senatorial districts of Anambra state
Moreso, initial findings revealed
that the ex-female minister was the only single signatory to the account, as
The Nation learnt on Saturday, July 2. A top official of the anti-graft agency
stated on Saturday, July 2 that the former female minister would be brought
before the court soon.
Men of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC)
While the EFCC source was speaking,
he said: “Our findings indicated that the
ex-female minister opened an account in the name of her housemaid and with her
photograph. But the signature in the account is that of the ex-minister.
“At
the time we made the discovery, over N2.5billion was in the account. But the
volume of transactions in the account has been huge.
“We
are suspecting that the ex-minister did not put the housemaid in the picture of
what she wanted to do with her passport photograph. “We have established that
the ex-minister has been drawing funds from the said account. We have retrieved
records of all transactions by the ex-Minister. We will soon bring her to
justice no matter how long it takes to follow due process.”
On the war against graft, about two
weeks ago, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, the country’s, number two man, at Abuja, said
the there are different measures aimed at reducing corruption in Nigeria.
