Ex-NNPC boss Yakubu arraigned, remanded in prison over $9.8m fraud

Friday Ajagunna
Friday Ajagunna
Andrew Yakubu

A former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, was on Thursday arraigned on a six-count charge of fraud at the Federal High Court, Abuja.

A Federal High Court in Abuja ordered Yakubu to be remanded in Kuje Prison pending when the ruling on his bail application would be delivered on March 21.

Justice Ahmed Mohammed gave the order of remand shortly after the ex-NNPC boss was arraigned and his bail application argued.

Yakubu pleaded not guilty to the six charges preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on March 10, bothering on fraud and false declaration of assets against him.

The charges were all in relation to the money recovered from his house in Kaduna on February 3.

Operatives of the EFCC had stormed a building belonging to the former NNPC boss and recovered the sum of $9.7m and £74,000 stashed in a huge fireproof safe in a slum in Kaduna.

The sums of foreign currencies amounted to about N3bn.

Arguing his client’s bail application shortly after the arraignment, Ahmed Raji (SAN), urged the court to grant bail to the former NNPC boss on either ‎self-recognisance.

But EFCC’s lead prosecuting counsel, Ben Ikani, opposed the bail application and urged the judge to impose stringent conditions if the satisfied to grant bail to the defendant.

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