The management of Fidelity Bank Plc has said it is cooperating with authorities on the investigations involving former Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke.
It had been widely reported on Thursday that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had arrested the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Fidelity Bank Plc, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo, and some officials for allegedly receiving $115m from a Alison-Madueke.
It had also been reported that the EFCC also arrested the bank’s Head of Operations, Mr. Martins Izuogbe, for his role in the alleged scam, which the anti-graft agency described as unprecedented.
But the bank in statement issued on Thursday,and titled “Fidelity Bank Cooperates With Authorities”, said in all the transaction it did, it had followed due process.
The statement read;
“Our attention has been drawn to reports in the media on investigations into transactions undertaken by the Bank in the normal course of business in 2015,”
“The transactions are now the subject matter of investigations by the Economic & Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
“We can confirm that the transactions were duly reported as required by the regulators and the Bank is cooperating fully with the authorities on the investigation.
“We assure our numerous stakeholders, including our customers that we are working assiduously towards a quick resolution of the issues.”
As huhuonline.com previously reported,the anti graft agency on Wednesday revealed that during the build-up to the 2015 presidential election, Diezani invited Okonkwo to help her handle some cash, which would be disbursed to electoral officials and groups.
The source disclosed that the fraud was uncovered when the EFCC began investigations into how officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Rivers, Delta and Akwa Ibom states received N675.1m.
“The MD of Fidelity Bank has been arrested and is currently in our custody. During investigations into the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioners, we got a major breakthrough as funds disbursed were traced to Fidelity Bank,” the source said.
“We invited the MD, who then confessed to us that during the build-up to the presidential election, Diezani invited him to a meeting in Abuja. Diezani told him that some companies would deposit some funds in his bank and that she would give him further instructions on how the funds would be disbursed.
“The first company, Auctus Integrated, deposited $17,884,000 into the bank. The second company, Northern Belt Gas Company, deposited $60m while another company, Midwestern Oil and Gas, deposited $9.5m. A fourth company, Leno Laitan Adesanya, deposited $1.85m while the MD himself received $26m in cash.”
The source alleged that Diezani’s son, Ugonna Madueke, later served as a middleman between the former minister and the MD of the bank.
He said it was Diezani’s son who forwarded the names of the beneficiaries of the funds, which included INEC officials and several interest groups as well as election monitors, who were expected to compromise the electoral process.
He said, “The MD said it was Diezani’s son that sent him a list of beneficiaries which included several INEC officials and election monitors across the 36 states. Diezani specifically instructed that the funds be disbursed at least a day or two before the elections. The total amount of money was $115m and Diezani told the bank to convert the funds into naira, which was about N23.3bn at the time.
“However, the suspects told us that the volume of money was too big and they had problems converting the funds. So, Diezani told the bank MD to use the bank’s funds and hold on to the dollars as collateral and that after elections, the bank could use the dollars to replace the bank funds.”
The source stated that Diezani did not operate any account with the bank and wondered why Okonkwo would allow himself to be used in such a manner.
“He may be charged with conspiracy once we are done with investigations,” the source said.
