‘It’s Diezani’ — Bawa clarifies comment on minister who ‘laundered $37m’

Abdulrasheed Bawa, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), says Diezani Alison-Madueke, former petroleum minister, laundered $37 million through real estate.

While featuring on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Tuesday, Bawa had narrated how the commission investigated a female minister, who he said, connived with the managing director of a bank to purchase a property worth $37 million.

The name of the minister was, however, not disclosed.

Speaking during the presidential media briefing on Thursday, Bawa said he was making reference to Alison-Madueke and that she will be prosecuted once she is in the country.

The anti-graft agency had filed charges of money laundering against Alison-Madueke who left the country for the UK shortly before the inception of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Ibrahim Magu, former EFCC chairman, had said Alison-Madueke stole “not less than $2.5 billion”. 

The commission had also disclosed that it had secured the final forfeiture of over $80 million worth of properties owned by the former minister.