Money Laundering: EFCC opens case against ex-Gov Obiano as Two prosecution witnesses testify
EFCC charged the former governor with nine counts of misappropriating over N4 billion from the state’s security vote accounts
Two witnesses, on Tuesday, testified at the Federal High Court, Abuja, as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) opened its money laundering case against former Governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano.
A branch manager of Fidelity Bank, Tochukwu Nnadi, and an Onitsha-based businesswoman, Chinwe Patricia Egbunam, were led in evidence as first and second prosecution witnesses by EFCC’s lawyer, Sylvanus Tahir, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
The case came up before the trial judge, Inyang Ekwo.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Obiano was Anambra State governor between March 2014 and March 2022.
EFCC charged the former governor with nine counts of misappropriating over N4 billion from the state’s security vote accounts.
At Tuesday’s proceedings, Nnadi, the first prosecution witness (PW1) told the court that he was the manager of a branch of Fidelity Bank in Awka, the capital of Anambra State.
The witness said: “My lord, as part of our responsibilities, we manage customers’ accounts and interface with various security and anti-graft agencies in terms of enquiry on a customer’s account.
“We usually comply by providing the requested information.
“I know the defendant in this matter. He is the immediate past governor of Anambra State.
“In April 2022, I was informed by our compliance unit that I was needed at EFCC in respect of activities of the past administration of Anambra State.
“I went there with two of my colleagues. The EFCC told me that my invitation was in respect of an ongoing investigation.
“I was told that it was because I was the manager of the branch that handled most of the financial activities of the then-state government.
“The state government maintains various accounts with our bank, and one of such accounts was for security votes.”
He said there was nothing special about the security votes account.
“It was like every other account we managed for the state government.
“The account was mostly funded by the office of the Accountant General of the state and bulk of the funds came from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state.
“Payments into the account were made weekly and all transactions out of the account were always based on the advice of the account operators.
