· Family member: Money and apartment do not belong to her
Tobi Soniyi in Lagos
In a follow up to the discovery of the cash stashed away in dollars, pounds sterling and naira denominations in Flat 7, No. 16 Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Thursday afternoon stormed the Abuja residence of the former the former Managing Director of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) and later Managing Director of NNPC Retail, Mrs. Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue who was retired last week.
According to THISDAY sources, the money totalling an estimated $43.4 million, comprising $43.3 million, N23 million and £27,000, all in cash, was discovered through a sting operation carried out by the anti-graft agency.
It was uncertain why the operatives were at her Abuja residence, but sources had initially said that the apartment in which the cash was found belongs to Mrs. Nnamdi-Ogbue.
However, when THISDAY contacted a member of her family, Thursday, he vehemently denied that Mrs. Nnamdi-Ogbue owns the apartment and cash found in it.
The family member, who preferred not to be named, told THISDAY that Mrs. Nnamdi-Ogbue and her family occupy Flat 2B in the building and that her husband and son were in the apartment complex at the time of the EFCC raid on Wednesday.
“They were actually at home yesterday (Wednesday), when they heard that EFCC officials were in the building. Nnamdi, her husband, had a slight fever and was at home with his son.
“No one ever came to their apartment at the time of the raid and I can confirm that Esther is in Abuja as we speak,” the family source said.
Another source close to her linked her travails to the fact that she had reported the expropriation of petroleum products belonging to NNPC by Capital Oil and Gas Limited and MRS Oil Plc, to the EFCC and Department of State Services (DSS).
The source said she had obviously stepped on some “very big toes”, hence the move to “deal with her”.
Mrs. Nnamdi-Ogbue was appointed MD of PPMC in September 2015 and was redeployed a year later to head NNPC Retail by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu when he was still the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the state-run oil firm.
THISDAY had reported on Tuesday that she and three other officials of NNPC Retail had been recommended for retirement by a committee set up by the current GMD of NNPC to investigate the expropriation of NNPC’s products.
Meanwhile, the luxury apartment building, which was built by the former governor of Bauchi State and ex-National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, is known to have high profile occupants, including another former governor of a South-east state, who bought the flats from Mu’azu off-plan when it was still under construction.
Other high profile tenants in the building, known as Osborne Towers, include a media owner and the son of a technology business mogul.
During the construction of the luxury building by the construction firm, Cappa D’Alberto a few years ago, the apartments were marketed by Mrs. Udo Maryanne Okonjo the Chief Executive of Fine & Country West Africa, a real estate firm that specialises in the sale and lease of high-end properties in Lagos and Abuja.
A source close to Mu’azu confirmed that about 90 per cent of the apartments have long been sold, while the former PDP chieftain retains the penthouse on the 12th floor in the building.
The source who lives in the building and witnessed EFCC operatives removing the cash from the apartment, informed THISDAY that the facility manager in the building confirmed that a woman had been seen several times entering Apartment 7, which remained unoccupied, with jute bags (locally known as Ghana-must-go bags) and suitcases, claiming to be carrying clothes.
“Since she had the key to the empty apartment, we all thought that its owner lived abroad and would from time to time send this lady to keep things for him or her there.
“No one ever suspected that it was cash that the lady was bringing and stashing away in the apartment,” the source volunteered.
The latest cash haul is reminiscent of a similar discovery, last February, of $9.7 million in the Kaduna home of the former GMD of NNPC, Dr. Andrew Yakubu.
Details to follow…
