Former Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State is in big trouble. An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operative, Mr. Michael Wetkas has revealed how the governor and his sons received bribes on contracts awarded during his tenure as governor of Jigawa State…
“We discovered that Dantata and Sawoe Construction Company, which executed over 21 contracts totalling almost N30bn, had continuously paid over N1bn into the accounts of Speeds International Limited and Bamaina Holding Company – both accounts whose sole signatory is Alhaji Sule Lamido,”
“Investigations also revealed that about N100m of third party cheques were cleared into the Access Bank Account of Speeds International Limited, where Mustapha Sule Lamido is a signatory.
“These revelations resulted in the invitation of the Managing Director of Dantata and Sawoe Construction Company, one Mr Udo, to the Commission, where Udo claimed that the monies paid were for sub-contracts awarded by Dantata and Sawoe Construction Company to Sule Lamido and his children’s companies for supplies of Bitumen, Diesel and Steel Iron Wrought – construction consumables used by the company.
“A close inspection of Dantata and Sawoe’s electronic records, physical books, financial statements, consumable journals, and waybills by the investigators and the forensic team revealed discrepancies which could not be explained.
“In one of such cases, a forensic report revealed that entries dating back to between 2007 and 2013 were only entered into records in 2014-2015, long after EFCC investigations had commenced.
“Upon further questioning, the 9th defendant, one Mr Bartholomew could not provide any evidence that the company had procured any items to execute the sub-contract.
“As part of the investigation, the team of operatives discovered another company, A.G. Ferrero and Co. Limited, which was also a contractor to the state between 2007 and 2013, when Sule Lamido was the governor of Jigawa State. A.G. Ferrero was awarded contracts by the Jigawa State Government, one of which was the construction of the Jigawa State Secretariat, Dutse.
“The contract for the project was initially awarded for N6bn but later reviewed to over N9bn.”
“Alhaji Ahmadu subsequently got and executed two contracts, valued at a sum of N62m. During the course of investigation, however, other contracts were discovered to have been executed by the duo of Mustapha Sule Lamido and Aminu Wada Abubakar, totalling over N150m.
“We discovered an account in Access Bank in the name of Rauda Integrated Services Limited, which had the 3rd and 4th defendants as signatories, into which part of the payments for these contracts, which had been executed without the knowledge of the owner of the company, had been paid.”