Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s former Petroleum
Resources Minister, purchased Port Harcourt’s Le Meridien Hotel for
$25million from a former Rivers State military administrator, Anthony
Akpo, SaharaReporters learned at the weekend.
Our sources say that the transaction was carried out using several
persons, including Dauda Lawal, a First Bank of Nigeria Executive
Director.
Lawal’s role, according to investigators at the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), was to pick up from Skye Bank in
Lagos and innocuously drop off $25million cash into a bank account at
Sterling Bank PLC.
The directive to pick up the huge cash haul was coordinated by
Stanley Lawson, a former group executive director of Finance and
accounts at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
During EFCC interrogations, Dauda claimed he did not know that the
transaction was aimed at purchasing Le Meriden Hotel in Port Harcourt,
and that he was only helping a friend, Mr. Lawson, to run errands.
People knowledgeable about Mr. Lawal’s closeness to Diezani, which some
say sometimes appeared to be romantic, said he may not be telling the
whole truth.
Lawal was one of the bankers arrested by the EFCC in a recent
fraud-related raid of high profile bankers involved in financial crimes
perpetrated by Mrs. Alison-Madueke. Others include Herbert Wigwe of
Access Bank PLC, Nnamdi Okonkwo of Fidelity Bank PLC, and Yemi Adeola,
the MD of Standard Bank PLC.
Le Meriden hotel was conceived as a five-star hotel. It was built in
2003 by retired Brigadier General Ukpo with the help of Julius Berger,
the construction company with whom he became acquainted during his early
days first as the military administrator of Rivers state and later as
the Principal Secretary to former Military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida.
Ukpo sold the 87-room luxury hotel to Mrs. Alison-Madueke through a web
of actors with the hope that no one would find out.
After the EFCC discovered the fraudulent sale, Ukpo reportedly
offered to hand over the hotel to the federal government, but President
Buhari is believed to have rejected the offer, saying the government has
no business managing a hotel, and insisting that Ukpo return $25m to
the federation account.
It is unclear why the former army chief has not yet been arrested.
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