How a Deadman was used to scam kwara state

The untold story of Bukola Saraki.

The plan of ex-governor of Kwara State, Senator Bukola Saraki to surpass the glowing achievements of his late father, the godfather of Kwara politics, Olusola Saraki, might have collapsed even before he engages the second gear and with the weight of the purported evidences of monumental frauds being uncovered in his name, his friends and political associates are now worried that he might probably  be on the road to jail.

One of the cases operatives of the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) are trying to establish an iron clad case in order  to try the ex-governor successfully is the N4B scam, which was allegedly perpetrated during his tenure in office through the defunct Intercontinental bank.

Senator Saraki had been detained, interrogated and released on bail by the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) in connection with a petition  we garthered was written by the management of a petroleum company,Joy Petroleum Limited, based on the protracted problem they have with the former management of the bank bothering on denial of access to its corporate bank account with the absorbed Intercontinental Bank on claims that the account was a top management account.

The case was subsequently recommended to be  taken to an appropriate court of law as recommended by the Inspector General of Police after he had carefully studied the casefile and gotten appropriate legal advice, but investigations revealed that the case is yet to see the light of the day.

According to sources, strings pulled from the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, who happens to be a friend of Senator Saraki, Mohamed Adoke (SAN), by the senator, has been preventing the due process of the law from taking its course.

Joy Petroleum, according to our investigations  came into existence in 1999 with the late Mr Mathew Obahor, who was within the year 2003 to 2007, the personal assistant to the Governor, as the managing director and the sole signatory to the company’s account until after his death as a result of an ailment that lasted for over a year.

After his death, we garthered that the new helmsmen were pestered repeatedly asked by Intercontinental Bank to pay up a loan of 11million naira purportedly granted to the late director, a loan  said to have been serviced with a left over of 4million  later rose to 11million in less than a year  all within a time interval that was not too far from the time a new director came on board to assume the position of managing director.

The new managing director  Paul Obahor, who is the brother of the deceased managing director, Mathew, was said to have  requested for the statement of account from the then existing Intercontinental Bank in order to continue the operation of the company and also verify the authenticity of the said loan and other transactions  but was denied total access to the account till present on the basis that it was a ‘top management account” as earlier stated,while Paul stood his ground on vetting the account, the bank too was unyeiding and resolutely refused him access to the account, not only that  the bank did not relent in its effort to pursue the 11million naira claim  they said must be paid back despite the outright denial of the new director to the account through which the loan was processed,this according to a dependable source was a contrived ploy by the bank acting hand in hand with some forces whose identities are now falling into place to discourage the new MD from further seeking the sacred account.

Sources said that following the petition from the new director of Joy Petroleum to the Special Fraud Unit (SFU), it was discovered that the company’s account had been used to access loans in billions of naira, which was not paid back on several occasions and done without observing the due process involved in granting such magnitude of loan.

Findings also revealed that the now controversial  loans were  always instructed by the Managing Director of the bank, Mr Lai Alabi to the Joy Petroleum account officer.

Mr Lai  Alabi who assumed the position of the Managing Director of Intercontinental Bank after the saga of the former MD, Mr Erastus Akingbola, was once a top staff of Dicetrade Limited and the defunct society Generale Bank which Senator Saraki was a vice Chairman.

Alabi was also linked with Shonga Farm, owned by Kwara State Government, which came into existence, when the Senator was the governor of Kwara State.he was said to have ensured  that joy petroleum had a less scrutinized, and non-rejectable admittance to loans  from inception to till December 2009,  when  Mathew Obahor was bedridden  and eventually died

Investigations also revealed that this same sacred account contained  how joy petroleum enjoyed special loans even  after the death of the late director  and all these were approved with appended  forged signature of the deceased and without the knowledge of other directors of the company alongside several forged company resolutions.

Source revealed that several billions of naira were fraudulently loaned between the years 2006 to 2010 including a sum of over N4 billion loaned after the death of the managing director who we were told was the  sole signatory to the account of Joy Petroleum Company without the knowledge of the father and mother of the deceased  who also made up the board of directors  of the company.

The fund was said to have been requested on the ground that Joy Petroleum, unknown to the new managing director and other registered  directors of the company, stands as the parent company to Skyview Properties and Dicetrade limited, all linked to Senator Bukola Saraki. It was not also discovered  that part of the loan was used for the resuscitation of the defunct Society Generale linked to the new Heritage Bank.

These and other damning facts we garthered were uncovered at a time when access bank were in the process of reconciling the accounts of intercontinental bank before the takeover,the investigators handling the case we were told only had a breakthrough when access bank came into the picture, they got copies of the controversial “management account” which has now become the albatross of Bukola saraki.