2023 Presidential Primaries: Multimillion Dollar Money Laundering Traced To APC Presidential Aspirant

*Triggers reopening of money laundering case by anti-corruption agencies

With just a few hours to the commencement of delegates vote at the ongoing extraordinary delegates congress of All Progressives Congress (APC) to elect presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, officials of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and ICPC are already positioned at strategic locations in Abuja, monitoring situation.

Aside their routine duty of preventing the kind of dollar rain that was said to have been witnessed at the PDP convention last week, there are allegations that certain candidates are embarking on huge money-laundering activities in a desperate bid to heavily monetise the event.

Reports indicated that in the massive heist, huge sums of money in US dollars are recently being transported from Lagos to Abuja using a private jet linked to a State government in the Southwest. Besides, the same presidential aspirant is also transferring N5m each to delegates using a General Ledger account in one of leading Nigeria banks which just concluded a merger with another bank not too long ago.

According to sources close to the security agencies, the Presidential aspirant who hails from the South-West is contesting to become the flag-bearer of the ruling APC, but now is alleged to have laundered millions of dollars through a controversial tax consultancy for the purpose of the primary.

Preparatory to the convention, sources had confirmed that a network of Nigerian security agents uncovered the multimillion-dollar cash said to have been flown last week in a private jet from Lagos to Abuja, in what may turn out to be probably the biggest money-laundering scandal in the country’s recent history.

Preliminary investigation revealed that these monies were stuffed in crisp foreign currency notes inside the private jet allegedly on the orders of the aspirant.

In a bid to forestall the battle of dollar rain and money politics on party delegates, such as played out at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) convention where each delegate at the convention was reported to have been given scores of thousands bribe to sway their votes in favour of particular aspirants, FG security agencies are said to be on the trail of the cash and also the bank transfers which is being concealed by using General Ledger accounting.

According to our sources, the development has led to the reopening of the investigation into the tax consultancy firm allegedly owned by one of the aspirants following series of petitions filed by a former managing director, who alleged that his life was being threatened after he was illegally removed.

It was in fact disclosed that the anti corruption agencies has validated some of the claims made by the former MD of the tax consultancy including tax avoidance crimes and money laundering offenses involving a well-known TV station.

Some of the anti-corruption agencies were even said to be frozen some accounts of the tax consultancy in the past based on the establishment of a prima facie case against the company and its promoters such as the presidential aspirant.

It would be recalled that five days ago, Mr Osita Okechukwu, one of the founding members of the APC had appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to come and rescue the Nigerian currency ahead of the APC primary election following the recent unprecedented assault unleashed to the nation’s currency at the PDP’s dollar-induced primary which has since led to the depreciation of the Naira and the country’s economy.

Okechukwu advised the President to support the use of the consensus method to ensure that the forthcoming APC presidential primary does not follow the PDP’s highest bidder “Dollar Rain.”