Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission on Friday grilled Shalewa Obanikoro,
the daughter of a former Minister of State for
Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, over a transaction of
N800m she allegedly made.
Investigators told our correspondent that Shalewa
was grilled at the Lagos office of the EFCC for
several hours alongside her mother, Moroophat.
An impeccable source at the anti-graft agency said
as part of investigations into the N4.7bn allegedly
paid into the company account of Obanikoro’s sons
– Babajide and Gbolahan – by the Office of the
National Security Adviser, the commission started
investigating some other members of the family.
The detective said, “Obanikoro’s wife came to our
office on Friday morning as part of investigations
into the N4.7bn paid into Sylvan McNamara, a
company owned by her sons. During investigation,
we stumbled on the account of an oil company. We
then discovered that Obanikoro’s daughter was a
signatory to the account of the oil company and
that millions of naira was paid into the account at
different times.
“We then invited the daughter and she came to
meet us at the office. During investigations, we
found out that the daughter gave a standing order to
the bank that N800m should be moved into another
account. We wondered why such a young girl would
have access to such funds so we started quizzing
her.
“This is a whole new dimension to the case and we
will continue to investigate to find out if it is related
to the arms probe or not.”
Obanikoro and his sons, who are citizens of the
United States, have remained in the US for over a
year.
However, the EFCC swiftly seized the US passport
of Shalewa to prevent her from towing the path of
her father and brothers.
The investigator said, “We were told that she was
planning on travelling to the US soon so we swiftly
seized her passport because she is vital to our
investigation. However, we told her to be coming
from home.”
Apart from the N4.7bn arms scam rocking the
Obanikoro family, it will be recalled that MOB
Integrated Services Ltd, a company headed by
Obanikoro’s second son, Gbolahan, was implicated
by the Aigboje Imokhuede-led Presidential
Committee on Verification and Reconciliation in
2012.
The company was said to have made three
transactions valued at N5, 393, 592,906.62.
However, investigations revealed that the company
only made one transaction valued at N3,
261,263,992.52 verified as legitimate.
The difference of over N2bn was said to have been
embezzled as MOB did not make the needed oil
supply.
However, sources at the commission told our
correspondent that after Obanikoro was appointed
the Minister of State for Defence, the case was
mysteriously suspended indefinitely.
The latest revelation may be the missing piece of
the puzzle, detectives believe.
However, the former minister said in a statement
that his wife had high blood pressure and other
heart-related ailments and asked security agents not
to drag her into the arms probe as she knew
nothing about the case.
He said, “We are using this medium to call on the
officials of the EFCC to desist from persecuting an
innocent woman who has no dealings at all with any
of the businesses that they are investigating and
totally unaware of the alleged transactions.
“For emphasis, the innocent woman has a history of
high blood pressure and heart-related ailments and
as such should not be dragged into their biased and
politicised investigations.”
Obanikoro also denied media reports that his wife
was arrested with incriminating evidence.
