As officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission get ready to interrogate outgoing Speaker Dimeji Bankole of the House of Representatives, Saharareporters has identified the United Bank of Africa domiciliary and local account numbers through which the legislator moved some $1 billion of stolen funds.
As officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission get ready to interrogate outgoing Speaker Dimeji Bankole of the House of Representatives, Saharareporters has identified the United Bank of Africa domiciliary and local account numbers through which the legislator moved some $1 billion of stolen funds.
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Two days ago, Saharareporters had broken the story about Mr. Bankole’s involvement in one of Nigeria’s biggest episodes of corruption. Following our report, an aide of Mr. Bankole’s told Saharareporters that the EFCC had finally summoned the former speaker to come to the agency’s headquarters tomorrow for interrogation.
Meanwhile, sources at UBA and EFCC disclosed to us that Mr. Bankole had used two account numbers for his massive money laundering schemes. One account, originally tagged “House Recurrent Account,” is numbered 0039-0070-0000-18, while the second has the number 0039-0050-0000-25. The second account was simply tagged "Office of the Speaker."
A source who is familiar with the case revealed that Mr. Bankole hijacked the domiciliary account "0039-0050-0000-25" and used it for personal purposes. In August 2008, Mr. Bankole forced the accountant at the National Assembly to withdraw his signature from the and then made one "Adenekan Gbadebo" the sole signatory.
SaharaReporters investigations show that the federal government, under both Umaru Yar'Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, paid huge sums of monies into the two accounts for Mr. Bankole who became the Speaker of the Lower House in 2007 after his predecessor, Patricia Etteh, was herself forced out on account of her excessive spending on her official quarters.
Our sources say several accounts are being held in trust for Mr. Bankole at UBA where he has been perpetrating these frauds, and where he seems to have enjoyed inside help at the topmost levels.
On January 24 2011, for instance, the Accountant General of the Federation deposited N15.389 billion into the "House Recurrent Account." Two days later, that money disappeared without trace. On January 26, N5 billion was moved from the account, and on February 8, another N10 billion similarly disappeared.
The maze of Mr. Bankole’s financial maneuvers continued as the Speaker secured a N10.380 billion loan from the UBA with an interest rate of 15%, management fee of 1.0% and processing fee of 2.5%. Curiously, that “loan” essentially disappeared as soon as it was released.
News of Mr. Bankole’s financial schemes soon leaked to some of his colleagues who became suspicious that he was involved in money laundering. A group of legislators led by Dino Melaye blew the whistle on Bankole’s scams.
Two aides of Mr. Bankole confirmed to SaharaReporters today that he has officially received an invitation to appear before the EFCC on Tuesday. He is expected to face EFCC investigators to explain how he personalized and defrauded the Nigerian state of hundreds of millions of dollars through several accounts opened at the UBA in 2008.
EFCC investigations show that Bankole has spent some of the corruptly acquired funds to commence construction of high profile properties and to purchase the 32-storey NITEL building in Lagos. He is currently developing a N7 billion resort in Akodo area of Lekki.
A source within the EFCC told SaharaReporters that their investigators were troubled that UBA has developed a notoriety for making controversial customer accounts in the bank to disappear. For instance, when the Minister of Transport, Yusuf Sulaiman, was found to be operating a UBA account through which stolen funds were being laundered, UBA cleverly wiped the account out of its system and then claimed the account did not exist.
Aides of Mr. Bankole said they could not confirm that Mr. Bankole will appear before the EFCC tomorrow. The outgoing speaker dodged a similar meeting last Thursday claiming to be busy with inauguration-related activity. Sources at the EFCC stated that President Goodluck Jonathan had asked the leadership of the agency to go soft with the embattled speaker.
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