High profile corruption: Modu Sheriff blows the roof by allegedly stealing N300b Borno public fund

In our review of high profile corruption trials today, former Governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff featured in another record of N300 billion misappropriation allegation.

Also, a former banker with Wema Bank Nigeria Plc., Oni Ademola Dolapo was caught in N8 billion money laundering case by anti-graft agents.

Read on:

Ali Modu Sheriff – N300 billion misappropriation case

Ali Modu Sheriff, a former Governor of Borno State, was on June 3rd and 4th, 2015, detained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) over allegations of corruption.

Mr. Sheriff was said to have voluntarily handed himself to EFCC. The anti-graft agency had on April 23, 2015, moved to declare Mr. Sheriff wanted when he failed to honour its invitations for questioning.

He was alleged to have misappropriated N300 billion allocation to his state from the federation account during his administration between 2003 and 2011.

The investigation began in 2012 and had been ongoing ever since. Sheriff governed Borno State on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party.

Before then, he was a Senator between 1999 and 2003 on the ticket of the same party.

He was a founding member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), before he defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The EFCC on February 23, 2016 said, Sheriff was still under investigation. Sheriff was again on March 13, 2016, arrested by EFCC for interrogation.

The former factional National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party was detained and questioned for hours at the EFCC office in Abuja.

It was gathered that Sheriff was questioned on how he raised $72 million to buy a G650 Gulfstream aircraft after leaving office in 2011.

The Politician has at least two private jets.

Sheriff is also accused of benefiting from $200 million released by the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration to facilitate Boko Haram ceasefire in a neighbouring country in 2014.

Aside these, Sheriff was also presented with records of monies shared ahead of the 2015 general elections.

He was later granted an administrative bail while interrogation continues.

After years of legal battle for the chairmanship position of the opposition party, Modu Sheriff lost at the Supreme Court and later decamped from PDP to the ruling APC.

The case is still pending.

Oni Ademola Dolapo – N8 billion money laundering

Oni Ademola Dolapo is a former banker with Wema Bank Nigeria Plc who was convicted and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in 2015 for conspiracy and money laundering by Justice Joyce Abudmalik of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, Oyo State.

The court also ruled that he forfeits all his properties and cash in various banks as proceeds of crime. He also forfeited several sums in bank accounts.

They include the sum of N43,259,441.22 in a fixed deposit account with FCMB, N70,614.60 in the name of De-City-Life Enterprise with account No. 22749019 also domiciled with FCMB, another N7,189.22 in the name of Oni Iyabo Mary in the same bank and N966,788.81 in the First Bank account of Ezomal Ventures, among others.

The case is concluded.

Read also:

High profile corruption: How Wamakko misappropriated N13bn

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[This Publication includes part of a compendium by Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) covering corruption cases as at 22nd of November, 2019.