Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
on Friday grilled Shalewa Obanikoro, the daughter of a former Minister of State
for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, over a transaction of N800m she allegedly made.
Investigators told our correspondent that Shalewa was
grilled at the Lagos office of the EFCC for several hours alongside her mother,
Moroophat.
An impeccable source at the anti-graft agency said as part
of investigations into the N4.7bn allegedly paid into the company account of
Obanikoro’s sons – Babajide and Gbolahan – by the Office of the National
Security Adviser, the commission started investigating some other members of
the family.
The detective said, “Obanikoro’s wife came to our office on
Friday morning as part of investigations into the N4.7bn paid into Sylvan
McNamara, a company owned by her sons. During investigation, we stumbled on the
account of an oil company. We then discovered that Obanikoro’s daughter was a
signatory to the account of the oil company and that millions of naira was paid
into the account at different times.
“We then invited the daughter and she came to meet us at the
office. During investigations, we found out that the daughter gave a standing
order to the bank that N800m should be moved into another account. We wondered
why such a young girl would have access to such funds so we started quizzing
her. “This is a whole new dimension to the case and we will
continue to investigate to find out if it is related to the arms probe or not.” Obanikoro and his sons, who are citizens of the United
States, have remained in the US for over a year.
However, the EFCC swiftly seized the US passport of Shalewa
to prevent her from towing the path of her father and brothers.
The investigator said, “We were told that she was planning
on travelling to the US soon so we swiftly seized her passport because she is
vital to our investigation. However, we told her to be coming from home.”
Apart from the N4.7bn arms scam rocking the Obanikoro
family, it will be recalled that MOB Integrated Services Ltd, a company headed
by Obanikoro’s second son, Gbolahan, was implicated by the Aigboje
Imokhuede-led Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation in
2012.
The company was said to have made three transactions valued
at N5, 393, 592,906.62. However, investigations revealed that the company only
made one transaction valued at N3, 261,263,992.52 verified as legitimate. The difference of over N2bn was said to have been embezzled
as MOB did not make the needed oil supply.
However, sources at the commission told our correspondent
that after Obanikoro was appointed the Minister of State for Defence, the case
was mysteriously suspended indefinitely. The latest revelation may be the missing piece of the
puzzle, detectives believe.
However, the former minister said in a statement that his
wife had high blood pressure and other heart-related ailments and asked
security agents not to drag her into the arms probe as she knew nothing about
the case.
He said, “We are using this medium to call on the officials
of the EFCC to desist from persecuting an innocent woman who has no dealings at
all with any of the businesses that they are investigating and totally unaware
of the alleged transactions. “For emphasis, the innocent woman has a history of high
blood pressure and heart-related ailments and as such should not be dragged
into their biased and politicised investigations.”
Obanikoro also denied media reports that his wife was
arrested with incriminating evidence.
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