TheCable

The federal government has frozen the bank accounts of suspects being tried in court over allegations of corruption by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), TheCable can report.

This, TheCable understands, is part of the implementation of the Executive Order No. 6 on the “preservation of suspicious assets connected with corruption and other relevant offences” signed by President Muhammadu Buhari in October 2018.

The federal government has also  placed a travel ban on the affected persons, but the list is yet to be officially made public.

“I issued a cheque of N250,000 to a friend and it was turned down,” a former minister who was affected informed TheCable.

“When I called my account officer, he invited me for a meeting, where I was told there is a ‘post no debit’ instruction on all my accounts because of the executive order. They told me I am not the only one affected. All persons undergoing trial are affected.”

On Tuesday, Olisa Metuh, former spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said he did not have money to buy even “panadol” because all his accounts had been frozen by the EFCC.

On March 30, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, had released the list of alleged looters following a challenge from Kola Ologbondiyan, spokesman of the PDP.

“The PDP has challenged us to name the looters under their watch. They said they did not loot the treasury. Well, I am sure they know that the treasury was looted dry under their watch. Yet they decided to grandstand,” he had said.

“This shows the hollowness of their apology. This list is just a tip of the iceberg, and the PDP is aware of this. We did not make these cases up. Many of these cases are in court and the records are available.”

Among those listed were Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser; Dieziani Alison-Madukwe, former minister of petroleum resources; Kenneth Minimah, former chief of army staff; Alex Badeh, former chief of defence staff; Inde Dikko, former comptroller-general of customs; and  Bala Mohammed, former minister of the federal capital territory (FCT).

Others are Stella Oduah, a serving senator; Babangida Aliyu, former Niger State governor; Jonah Jang, former Plateau governor; Nenadi Usman, former minister of finance; Bashir Yuguda, former minister of state for finance; Femi Fani-Kayode, former minister of aviation; Raymond Dokpesi, founder of DAAR Communications and Uche Secondus, national chairman of the PDP.

The list released in two batches contained 29 names. Dokpesi and Secondus had sued the federal government over the issue but lost and file appeal. The cases are ongoing.