Former NNPC boss who had about $10m in his Kaduna home acquitted by Abuja high court

FORMER Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) managing director Andrew Yakubu has been acquitted by an Abuja high court of a $9.8m corruption charge brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

In February 2017, Mr Yakubu was arrested after the sums of $9.8m and £74,000 were recovered from his house in Kaduna. He was subsequently tried to court and the federal high court in Kano presided over by Justice Zainab Abubakar gave an interim order for the forfeiture of the money to the Nigerian government.

Today, a  Federal High Court in Abuja discharged and acquitted Mr Yakubu over the $9.8m corruption charges brought against him by the federal government. Justice Ahmed Mohammed ordered the huge foreign exchange seized from Mr Yakubu in 2017 and kept at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) be refunded to him forthwith.

Justice Mohammed held that the EFCC, which put Mr Yakubu on trial, failed woefully to establish that he held the money over and above the threshold allowed by law. He further ruled that the evidence of the witnesses of the anti-graft agency created doubts, which must be resolved in favour of the defendant.

During his trial, Mr Yakubu denied that part of the recovered money in his Kaduna residence was given to him by a businesswoman, Hajiya Bola Shagaya. He also refuted the allegations that some of the money was given to him by Kola Aluko and Jide Omokore, both of who are in oil and gas business.

Mr Yakubu said that although he knew Hajiya Shagaya, who is said to be the chief executive officer of Voyage Oil and Gas, he was unaware that her company was awarded an exploration license in 2012 when he was the NNPC group managing director. In Nigeria, the NNPC has been a cyst pit of corruption of late.