REVEALED: Two newly-appointed ICPC board members ‘undergoing multi-million-naira probe’

Two board members of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other offences Commission (ICPC) whose appointments were approved by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo are being investigated for corruption, according to ICIR.

The website said the anti-corruption agency is currently probing Maimuna Aliyu and Sa’ad Alanamu for alleged corruption in the region of N1billion.

While Alanamu is reportedly being investigated on corruption charges allegedly committed when he headed some institutions in Kwara state, Aliyu is said to have a longstanding case of abuse of office, misappropriation and diversion of public funds against her.

On Tuesday, the federal government replaced Nta Ekpo, chairman of ICPC, with Bolaji Owasanoye, a professor of law and also appointed 14 members into the board of the agency.

But ICIR said charges were already being prepared against Aliyu in preparation to taking her to court when her new appointment was made public.

“Aliyu is said to be highly connected in the corridors of power and might have used her clout to get nominated to the ICPC board to stop her prosecution by the commission,” the website said in its report.

“Apart from the ICPC investigation, our investigations also show that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Police have investigated several corruption cases against Aliyu, a former executive director of the Aso Savings and Loans.”

The report added that in May, a police investigative report indicted her and recommended her for prosecution.

The investigative report dated May 31, 2017, and signed by Taiwo Oyewale, a superintendent of police, for the deputy commissioner of police, IGP monitoring unit, said that Aliyu illegally converted to personal use a total of N58 million being proceeds of three plots of land belonging to her employers, Aso Savings and Loans.

As executive director, marketing, Aliyu was said to have got approval to sell three of the bank’s landed property in Abuja at the rate of N19 million each. Aliyu is said to have sold the lands for N58 million but refused to hand over the money to the bank.

The police investigations commenced after Aso Savings and Loans wrote a petition in November 2016 alleging that Aliyu, who had by then retired from the bank for three years, had refused to hand over the proceeds of the land sale.

The same month, the bank also wrote a petition against her to the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the EFCC and the ICPC

In one of the investigations, it was discovered that Aliyu actually sold the three plots of land entrusted to her by the bank at N40 million each (instead of N19 million) totaling N120 million and held on to every penny.

Apart from the N120 million allegedly misappropriated by her, the bank also lodged several complaints of abuse of office and conversion or diversion of its funds, totaling nearly N1 billion.

The bank alleged that in 2012, Aliyu sought and got a mortgage facility of N40 million to purchase five houses – four-bedroom detached mansionettes. However, after she resigned her appointment in September 2013, the former executive director said she could no longer bear the burden of the payments and requested the bank to cancel the mortgage on four units and take them over. She said she would continue to maintain the mortgage contract on just one unit.

She was also said to have abused her office by illegally allocating a house at Aso Groove estate to her son, Sand Aliyu. According to the bank, Aliyu had showed interest in buying the house for her son in the name of a company in which he is a director.

However, because she had all the keys of the houses put up for sale by the bank since she was in charge of marketing and sales, Aliyu handed over the key to the house to her son without paying a dime for the house worth N210 million.

ICIR said it attempted to reach Aliyu for comments, but her telephone line was switched off.

Alanamu was described as a protégé of Olusola Saraki, father of Senate President Bukola Saraki.

He is said to be undergoing investigation for corruption and bribery. He allegedly collected bribes from contractors handling TETFUND contracts, which he approved as chairman of the Board of Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin.

Both of them are believed to have got the appointments without the mandatory security screening.