As Nigerians awake to the news of another massive cash haul discovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Wednesday, it has been discovered that the cash stashed away in dollars, pounds sterling and naira denominations in an Ikoyi apartment may belong to the former Managing Director of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) and currently Managing Director of NNPC Retail, Mrs. Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue.
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 Nnamdi-Ogbue and three other officials of NNPC Retail had been recommended for compulsory retirement by a committee set up by the current GMD of NNPC to investigate the expropriation of petroleum products by Capital Oil and Gas Limited and MRS Oil Plc.
According to THISDAY sources, the cash amounting to about $43.5 million (as of last count), N23 million and £27,000, was hidden in Flat 7, No. 16 Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, in an apartment building known as Osborne Towers.
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 include a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), a media mogul, and the son of a technology business mogul.
A source close to the former governor confirmed that about 90 per cent of the apartments have long been sold, while Mu’azu 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.
If indeed the cash discovered in the building was kept there by an associate of Nnamdi-Ogbue, it will be 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…
Source: Thisday
