Atiku named in N1.162bn scam

A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has been linked as one the beneficiaries of the N1.162 billion state fund allegedly looted by a former governor of Plateau State, Chief Joshua Dariye.
Dariye was said to have paid N100 million into the account of a company, Marine Float Nigeria Limited, owned by Atiku Abubakar.
This was contain on Tuesday by a witness, Musa Sunday, at the resumed hearing of the suit brought against the former governor by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

The witness gave evidence on how Dariye shared the N1.162 billion ecological fund he got from the Federal Government before a Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja.
Dariye, now a senator, was governor of Plateau State between 1999 and 2007. The crime was allegedly committed in 2004.
The witness, an investigator with the EFCC, under cross-examination, gave a detailed breakdown of how Dariye allegedly shared the N1.16bn to his political associates and officials of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, in Plateau State.According to Musa Sunday, investigations by his team of detectives revealed that the ex-governor gave N100m traced to a company – Marine Float Nigeria Limited owned by former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar.

“The Ecological Fund Office is under the Presidency but the Office of the Vice-President oversees it and the vice-president chairs the agency’s activities. The vice-president at that time was Alhaji Abubakar Atiku,” the witness said.
He also said N100m was traced to the South-West PDP, received by Yomi Edu, who was then minister of special duties, while N80m went to then Permanent Secretary of the Ecological Fund Office in the Presidency, Kingsley Nkoma.
Sunday further said N10m went to a former Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu, N6.8m to the PDP Plateau State and N66m to 274 PDP wards in the state.