How Jonathan’s cousin, others stole $40m meant for communication kits

How Jonathan’s cousin, others stole $40m meant for communication kits

Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja has adjourned to July 7, 2017 the trial of a cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Azibaola Robert; his wife, Stella and their company, One Plus Holdings.

The judge adjourned the trial after a stunning revelation by the tenth prosecution witness, David Nkpe, on how One Plus shared to various companies the sum of $40 million received from the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA.

Azibaola and his co-accused allegedly diverted $40 million purportedly meant for supply of Tactical Communication kits for Special Forces which was transferred from the account of the ONSA with the Central Bank of Nigeria to the domiciliary account of their company, One Plus Holdings.

At the resumed sitting today, Nkpe told the court that analysis of documents relating to ‘One Plus Holdings Nigeria Ltd’, showed that the company received the sum of $40 million from ONSA.

According to him, investigation was extended to ONSA to ascertain the purpose for which the payment was made.

“EFCC wrote to ONSA to avail them with documents regarding the payment mandate and the reply came”, Nkpe said.

According to him, the payment for that particular mandate was for the “Supply of Tactical Communication Kits for Special Forces”.

He went on: “We investigated the utilisation of the funds and discovered that the funds were transferred to other companies including Bureau de Change and some of the funds transferred offshore to countries like London and United Arab Emirates”.

Asked if he could recall some of the beneficiaries, Nkpe said that, “there were several of them, but I remember that $6.6 million was transferred to a company called ‘Karahyna’ between October 2014 and April 2015, which was specifically done in eight tranches. I also recall that the sum of $1.5 million was transferred to ‘Reya Telecommunication’ which is a company under One Plus Holdings group.

He added that, “Another sum of $1.493million was transferred to ‘Kakatar El Ltd’ which is also a company under One Plus Holdings; a sum of $2 million was transferred to ‘Capitafield Investment Ltd’ and another $330,000 transferred to a company called ‘Teledom’.”

The PW10 told the court that investigation did not find any tactical communication kits procured from that fund. “Most of the companies that received the money did not supply any goods”, he said.

The witness said that the analysis carried out on the account of the third defendant (One Plus Holdings) on September 9, 2014 showed that the $40m was the only major inflow into the account and from the time of that receipt, all the transactions in the account were outflows, which is the distribution of the said $40m.

He said the credit balance in the account before the transaction was $17,277.50.

Thereafter, documents were presented and admitted as exhibits including: petition from the ONSA to EFCC as exhibit ASO 16 (1&2), Search warrant dated March 23, 2016; two power of attorney as exhibit ASO 18a &18b; Deed of Assignment as exhibit ASO 19a, 19b, 19c; transfer mandate from One Plus Holdings to Zenith Bank as ASO 20 (1-39); the two statement of the first defendant dated March 23 & 24, 2016 marked as exhibit ASO 21a & ASO 21b

Justice Dimgba, thereafter, adjourned for cross-examination of the prosecution witness