The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC) has told Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court that former Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Stephen Oronsaye had approved money stolen by the former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, who was convicted of N2.7bn pension fraud recently.
During the resumed trial on Tuesday, the prosecuting counsel, Oluwaleke Atolagbe, tendered a Federal High Court in Abuja judgement which convicted Maina to six years’ imprisonment.
The judgment was subsequently admitted as exhibit against Oronsaye in his ongoing trial on money laundering charges.
EFCC operative Rukayat Ibrahim, who is a leading witness said the money was in the pension fund and investigation revealed that the money was approved by Oronsaye.
Ms Ibrahim said Maina opened five fictitious accounts in a commercial bank and used them to siphon the money from the pension fund for his personal use.
Ms Ibrahim said, “Our investigation revealed that Abdulrasheed Maina took advantage of the fact that his brother worked with one of the commercial banks and opened the accounts in contravention to provisions of the Money Laundering Act.
“The accounts were opened without carrying out ‘know your customer,’ they were operated through SMS and emails and our investigations showed that although they had fictitious names, they were operated by Abdulrasheed Maina even though his name and picture did not appear on any of the accounts.
“We were able to link them to him through his signature on his extra-judicial statement, the phone number used to receive alerts and some payments from those accounts were traced to his real account.”
The witness also said investigation revealed that on July 15, 2010, over N101 million was transferred to Oronsaye’s account.
Ibrahim said when the commission asked for an explanation, Oronsaye gave an unclear explanation and brought a letter from the Presidency that the money was sent to the Presidency.
She further told the court that the letter did not represent virement of the money.
Justice Ekwo adjourned the matter till February 3 for cross-examination of the witness.
