The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has been able to make some headway in tracking how some of the $2billion arms funds were withdrawn from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
According to a report by The Nation, the withdrawals were carried out based on orders from above.
The report disclosed that part of the $2billion was gotten from the CBN, which was careful enough to get approval from the presidency, before disbursing funds.
A source in the know, was quoted to have said: “Investigation has shown some requests for funds or intervention funds from the CBN for security reasons. We are tracking all these requests, approvals and remittances.
“We are already retrieving some relevant documents from the apex bank in order to ascertain what such funds were actually meant for.
“One of the key things we discovered was that the CBN management was, however, careful because it made sure it got presidential approval of such requests.
“We will confront some of the suspects with these documents we have retrieved. They have the opportunity to give the details of how they spent such funds and the arms procured.”
Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, is said to have met with the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, on how to hasten the trial of the primary suspects inthe $2b arms scandal.
“The EFCC under Magu is doing its best to apply international best practices in managing the suspects arrested with $2b arms deals.
“The EFCC chairman has met with the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice on how to fast-track the trial of the suspects. What the anti-graft agency did was only to approach a Chief Magistrate’s Court for an order to remand the suspects.
“But these suspects can go to a High Court to vacate such order. We are trying to tidy up to arraign the suspects in court for an order to keep them in prison custody. In fact, the EFCC cell is becoming overstretched.”
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