by Azeez Adeniyi

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has submitted a report indicting Senate President, Bukola Saraki and some aides of diversion of N19bn from the N522bn Paris Club refund to President Muhammadu Buhari, Punch reports.

One of those indicted included Robert Mbonu of Melrose General Services Limited.

Mbonu was the Managing Director of liquidated Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria, the commercial bank owned by the Saraki family.

Recall that the Federal Government had approved the distribution of N522.74bn to the 36 states as part of Paris Club loan from 1995 to 2002.

The commission had however discovered that refunds were illegally routed through the account of the Nigeria Governors Forum by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

It was alleged that the NGF laundered about N19bn in connivance with Saraki.

The report also named the Relationship Manager to the Senate President in Access Bank, Kathleen Erhimu, Obiora Amobi, Gbenga Makanjuola, Kolawole Shittu and Oladapo Idowu.

The report alleges that sometimes in December, Saraki held a meetimg with ex-bank MD, Mbonu, Erhimu and his other aforementioned aides.

It added that sequel to the meeting, the sum of N3.5bn was lodged into Melrose General Services Company account number 0005892453, domiciled in Access Bank from the Nigeria Governors Forum on December 14.

The report stated that two of Saraki’s aides, Obiora Amobi and Gbenga Makanjuola, were introduced to Access Bank as representatives of Melrose General Services Limited by Mbonu to enable them to make cash withdrawals from the account.

It added that Amobi and Makanjuola made cash withdrawals in various tranches of N5m and N10m.

The report reads in part, “Based on the foregoing findings, it is clear that Robert Mbonu, the Managing Director of Melrose General Services Company and his company were used to help divert proceeds of unlawful activities under the guise of payment for contractual obligations with the Nigeria Governors Forum.

“Suffice to apprise that all payments received by Melrose General Services Company from the NGF have hitherto been diverted directly via cash withdrawals and indirectly through transfers by Gbenga Peter Makanjuola, Kolawole Shittu and Oladapo Joseph Idowu, who are principal aides to the Senate President.

“Furthermore, other payments from Melrose General Services Company have also been linked to companies that Dr. Bukola Saraki has interest in and carries out transactions with.

“This includes the sum of $183,000, which was transferred to Bhaska Devji Jewellers, Dubai, a company Dr. Bukola Saraki had repeatedly made payments to.

“Also, the sum of N200m was transferred to Wasp Networks Limited that subsequently transferred the sum of N170m to Xtract Energy Services Limited, a company that routinely made deposits into Dr. Saraki’s Access Bank US Dollar Domiciliary account.”

Spokesman for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed that such investigation was ongoing.

“I can only confirm that there are investigations but I don’t have details,” Uwujaren said.