Alleged N110bn laundering: How I received money to pay Yahaya Bello’s children’s school fees — BDC operator
A Bureau de Change (BDC) operator, Jamilu Abdullahi, on Thursday told the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) how one Abba Adaudu lodged more than... The post Alleged N110bn laundering: How I received…
Yahaya Bello, Kogi State's immediate past governor, has been facing prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations that he diverted about N110.4 billion from the state treasury during his time in office. He has denied wrongdoing, and the case has drawn wide public attention partly because of earlier standoffs between him and the EFCC over attempts to arrest and arraign him after he left office.
The testimony at the centre of this coverage comes from a Bureau de Change (BDC) operator testifying before the FCT High Court, who described how funds were routed through him to settle dollar-denominated school fees for Bello's children. BDCs are licensed to handle retail foreign exchange transactions, and their use in moving funds for school fees or other personal expenses is often scrutinised in corruption trials as a way of tracing how allegedly diverted public funds were spent. Tribune Online and Premium Times both report the operator's account of handling the payments, with Premium Times placing the testimony more explicitly within the EFCC's broader N110bn diversion allegations against Bello and his co-accused; further detail on the amounts involved, the identities of other parties named, and how this testimony fits into the wider trial has yet to fully emerge.