EFCC querries Obanikoro’s daughter over N800m transaction, seizes her passport

Firstclass Newsline gathered that the 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.