Fidelity Bank linked to Diezani’s $72.8m fraud

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it has uncovered additional $72,870,000 milllion connected to its investigation of a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke.

In a statement by its spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, on Wednesday, the commission said it had arrested a former Managing Director of Fidelity Bank Plc, Nnamdi Okonkwo, in relation to the just-discovered fund.

The commission recalled that Mr Okonkwo, who is currently the Chairman of First Bank Holding, alongside others, had earlier been grilled over the sums of $153 million and $115 million by its investigators.

“Okonkwo, who is currently the Chairman of First Bank Holding, alongside others, had earlier been grilled over a sum of $153 million and $115 million by the Commission.

“While all the $153 million were recovered by the EFCC, the cases involving $115 million, as it relates with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, bribery matter, are in various courts,” the statement added.

Recall that EFCC had on April 28, 2016, detained Mr Okonkwo over the same matter.

“Okonkwo and Charles Onyedibe are currently being detained by the EFCC over the whereabouts of the new $72.8m,” EFCC said on Wednesday.

The board of FBN Holdings Plc had on October 28 appointed Mr Okonkwo the new GMD of the company with effect from January 1, 2022.

He will succeed U.K. Eke, who will step down on December 31, according to the company’s note to the Nigerian Exchange Limited.

Mrs Alison-Madueke, who is at the centre of the ongoing investigations has since left the country shortly after leaving office in 2015.

Various sums of money and other assets, including jewelry and houses linked to her had been seized and forfeited to the federal government.

But EFCC’s efforts to extradite her from the United Kingdom, where she is believed to have fled to, to face trial back home have failed to yield results.