The EFCC operatives demanded documents relating to allocation of foreign exchange to the group in the last ten years.”
By Deborah Hassan
365Daily – Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday raided the headquarters of the Dangote Group in connection with ongoing investigation into forex allocations by embattled former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
On arrival at the headquarters of one of Africa’s largest conglomerates in Lagos, the EFCC operatives demanded documents relating to allocation of foreign exchange to the group in the last ten years, a report by Premium Times revealed.
It added that the operatives spent hours scrutinising documents provided by officials of the company for hours, before leaving with some of them.
According to the report, EFCC had written to 52 companies directing them to supply documents supporting the allocation and utilisation of foreign currencies to them in the last 10 years as part of ongoing investigation into alleged preferential forex allocations to individuals and organisation by CBN.
While some of the companies the EFCC wrote to had since complied, others asked for more time to gather the information and documents, it added.
“The Dangote people intimated the EFCC that the documents were ready and that they were bringing them over,” a source familiar with the matter told PREMIUM TIMES. “But the EFCC said its operatives would rather come to the company to collect the documents,” the report said.
“The Dangote Group is perhaps Africa’s largest conglomerate and it is troubling that the EFCC could deal with it in an unnecessary show of force especially when it is not obstructing its investigation in any form,” the source added.
A forensic audit of the CBN commissioned by President Bola Tinubu had uncovered 593 bank accounts allegedly domiciled in the United States, the United Kingdom and China, while the sum of 543.4 million pounds was said to have been kept by Emefiele in fixed deposit accounts.
The Obaze-led investigative team also accused Emefiele of manipulating the naira exchange rate and committing fraud in the e-Naira project. The former CBN boss has since denied the allegations.