President Bola Tinubu is currently under pressure over his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila’s alleged involvement in corruption.
Sources said on Monday that Gbajabiamila was fingered as one of the beneficiaries of the largesse of corruption uncovered under Ahmed Kuru, the Chief Executive Officer of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.
The Special Investigator, Jim Obazee’s report, exposed how Gbajabiamila benefitted from Ahmed Kuru’s “largesse of Ikoyi properties from his days as Speaker of the House of Representatives,” according to top sources in the presidency.
One of the sources said that Gbajabiamila in return had ensured Kuru remained as AMCON’s Chief Executive after about nine years.
Already, fresh information has emerged about how Godwin Emefiele and Ahmed Kuru, the AMCON CEO conspired in gross abuse of office to acquire banks of choice using public funds to fraudulently take over Polaris, Keystone and Unions Banks.
SaharaReporters obtained the Special Investigator’s report on the probe of Emefiele which uncovered the alarming sums of public funds which went into the fraudulent acquisition of the banks under Emefiele and AMCON under Kuru’s leadership.
It was on January 10 reported that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) dissolved the board and management of Titan Trust Bank, Union Bank, Polaris Bank and Keystone Bank.
This followed a report submitted to President Bola Tinubu by the Special Investigator on the Central Bank of Nigeria and Related Entities, Jim Obazee.
It was reported that the decision to dissolve the boards was taken after a meeting between the CBN Governor, Yemi Cardoso, Obazee and the boards of the four banks including Titan Trust Bank’s investors who had earlier avoided meeting with the Special Investigator.
It was reported in December 2023 that the office of the Special Investigator had insisted that the Chairman of Titan Trust Bank (TTB), Mr Tunde Lemo, Mr Cornelius Vink and Rahul Savara must appear before it over the acquisition of the Union Bank of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, on Monday, it was learnt that Obazee’s investigation uncovered a scheme by Emefiele (CBN) and Ahmed Kuru (AMCON) that placed N20 billion investment in Heritage Bank sometime in 2017 upon which the bank granted a loan of N25 billion to the Sigma Golf Consortium of Emefiele, Kuru, Abu Funtua, Asega Alega with Umaru Modibbo (as front) to acquire Keystone Bank.
Investigations by the special investigator exposed how the N25 billion government fund was roundtripped from Heritage Bank to Access Bank and ended in GTBank, where it was purportedly transferred to AMCON/CBN as payment for the acquisition of Keystone Bank by the Riverbank Sigma Golf Consortium.
It was learnt that in an unusual and unpredictable turn of events, the Presidential and CBN directive to sack the Boards of Union, Keystone, and Polaris Banks, took the Riverbank Signa Golf Consortium by surprise.
Independent financial investigations revealed that Ahmed Kuru threw all others under the bus to save his neck by blackmailing all government officials who had benefitted from his generosity through the sharing of Ikoyi and Abuja properties.
