How Jigawa Governor Got Kickback From Construction Firm

The details behind the corrupt acts of Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, and his sons, Aminu and Mustapha Lamido, and how they embezzled funds belonging to the state have emerged.


According to Premium Times, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) revealed that the panel in charge of probing how the state funds were used after the governor’s eldest son, Aminu Lamido, was arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano Airport on December 12, 2012 with undeclared $40,000.
The panel has however detected how a major construction company, Dantata and Sawoe, paid N1.3 billion as a bribe into the accounts of companies owned by Governor Lamido and his sons. The report revealed that when the governor got into office in 2007, he gave out state contracts that summed up to N13.5 billion in which the payments were made via five banking institutions namely:  Zenith, Access, Diamond, Sterling and UBA.

Related: Sule Lamido’s Sons Released On Bail From Detention

However, it was reported that the construction giant,  Dantata and Sawoe paid out over N1.3 billion into the accounts of companies in which the governor and his sons — Mustapha and Aminu within the same time the state contract was awarded out. The accounts which the money was specifically paid into were the accounts of Bamaina Holdings Limited where Sule Lamido is sole signatory and Speeds International Limited, both Unity Bank domiciled accounts.  The nature of the payments were distorted so as to confuse anyone trying to know what is in the onus, hence, N832 million was paid into these two accounts by the construction giant, while the balance of N488 million was paid into the family’s account at Access Bank.
The construction company also raised cheques in favour of Bamaina Company Nigeria Limited, Speeds International Limited and Gada Construction Limited, while the cheques were cleared into Bamaina Holdings account in Unity Bank even when Gada Construction Limited had no account in Unity Bank. These third party cheques amounted to over N500 million, a move that was later found out that there was no authorization, power of attorney or indemnity provided before these cheques were cleared.
Premium Times also made it known that aside from this construction firm, there are still many too that had a share in the embezzlement of the state fund and even some traditional rulers were a party to this corrupt act of the Jigawa state Governor and his sons.
Another construction firm, AG Farero, as also mentioned. This firm was said to have gotten a contract for the construction of the state secretariat, initially for N6.66 billion, but later for N9.3 billion, after an upward review,  sub-contracted jobs to Speeds International and Bamaina Aluminium Company Limited. It was later revealed that the two companies are owned by the Lamido family.
Although investigations are still going on, over N10billion has been said to have been transferred illegally to the personal accounts of the Jigawa State governor and that of his sons. Over eight people, aside from the governor and his sons, have been under investigation since the probing started.