Sule Lamido’s Sons Arrested Over Alleged N10b Fraud

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested two sons of Jigawa state governor, Sule Lamido, over an alleged N10billion fraud. Aminu and Mustapha Lamido were arrested Thursday in Kano and flown to Abuja on Friday morning, and are currently being interrogated at the EFCC headquarters in Abuja by a crack team of detectives. The arrest of the governor’s sons, insiders say, is in furtherance of the investigation that commenced in December 2012 when Aminu Sule Lamido was arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano Airport en route Cairo, Egypt for failure to declare the $50,000 he had on him. Although Aminu has since been prosecuted and convicted by a Federal High Court in Kano, investigation as to how he came by the money has led investigations to uncover a web of money laundering in which billions of naira from Jigawa state government accounts are funnelled into the accounts of companies run by the Jigawa state governor and his two sons. Over N10billion is said to have been transferred from Jigawa state government accounts into the accounts in which Sule Lamido and his two sons have interest from 2007 till date. The Commission is said to have traced these transfers to 10 companies where Lamido and sons are directors and signatories to the account. The companies include Bamaina Alluminium Limited, Bamaina Holdings Limited, Bamaina Company Nigeria Limited, Rawda Integrated Services Limited, Speeds International Limited and Saby Integrated Nigeria Limited. The account of these companies received huge cash inflow between 2007 and 2013, a period that coincide with the tenure of Sule Lamido as governor of Jigawa state. For instance in Bamaina Aluminium where Sule Lamido and his two sons are directors, investigations revealed that the company’s account controlled by Mustapha as signatory received total credit of N1.52billion between January 2010 and August 2013. It recorded a total debit of the same amount, with Mustapha and other companies in which Lamido and his sons are directors, being the beneficiaries. In the same vein, Bamaina Holdings Limited’s account with the governor as sole signatory received a total of N1.19billion between February 2007 and July 2013. About N1billion was paid from this account into accounts of companies controlled by the governor and his sons. Massive lodgements were also discovered in the account of Bamaina Company Nigeria limited controlled by Mustapha as sole signatory from Bamaina Alluminium. Between January 2010 and July 2013, the account received over N500million. From the account of Rawda Integrated Services Limited controlled by Mustapha, there have also been massive movement of funds to another company run by Sule Lamido, Speeds International Limited. Speeds’ account recorded a turnover ofN2.2billion between January 2007 and February 2010. In the account of Rawda with a new generation bank investigators discovered the movement of N2.6billion to an unknown signatory. That account recorded over one hundred withdrawals running to over N600milion in cash between November 2007 and April 2008 Saby Integrated Services Nigeria Limited, another company owned by Lamido received over N730million from several Jigawa State government agencies between June 2010 and August 2010