EFCC freezes N30bn transferred from NSIPA accounts in relation to N44bn fraud case

Out of the N44 billion that was taken out of the National Social Investment Programme Agency’s (NSIPA) accounts, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has located and frozen N30 billion of the funds.

This happened just a day after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu suspended Halima Shehu, the troubled NSIPA National Coordinator, and the EFCC detained and arrested her.

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The Nation was informed on Wednesday by an unidentified source that the several accounts through which certain NSIPA officers moved the anti-graft agency had been frozen as part of an ongoing investigation.

The EFCC confirmed that unapproved N44 billion had been strangely transferred from NSIPA’s account to a number of individual and corporate accounts after hours of questioning and account profiling.

The EFCC interrogated Shehu about the purported scam on Wednesday.

Bwai Adamu Hamza, the direct former Director of Finance and Accounts, DFA, of NSIPA, was also detained by the anti-graft agency.

Hamza left the organisation in December to retire.

Shehu and Hamza were questioned yesterday by a dedicated team.

In order to achieve this, the EFCC tracked the cash movement and recovered N30 billion that was linked to several accounts, freezing it.

The agency has intercepted and seized N17 billion as of Tuesday.

The commission located and frozen an extra N13 billion in some accounts in less than a day, bringing the total amount of money taken into custody to N30 billion.

It was discovered that N44 billion had been surreptitiously transferred from NSIPA’s accounts into business and private accounts connected to front companies.

This is in response to Halima Shehu’s former minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management, and social development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, declining the EFCC’s invitation to attend for questioning.

Umar-Farouq was invited by the EFCC due to allegations that she laundered N37, 170,855,753.44 while she was employed, allegedly through the contractor James Okwete.

The accusations were refuted by the former minister.