How did former Borno State governor,
Ali Modu Sheriff, raise $72 million (N12 billion)
to buy a Gulfstream aircraft, Model G650, after
leaving office as a public officer?
This was the major question put to him by a
crack team of Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission, EFCC, operatives, who grilled the
former governor of the Boko Haram-troubled
state for hours in Abuja, yesterday.
The interrogators had been specifically raised
by the commission to probe Sheriff, who was
the governor under which Boko Haram
insurgency birthed in Nigeria and were not
considered as a serious threat to the state and
the country at the time.
Vanguard learned that the invitation of Sheriff
by EFCC was to find out if he abused his
office as a governor or benefitted from alleged
rip-off of a former president to the tune of
$200 million under the guise of enforcing a
dubious Boko Haram ceasefire in a
neighbouring country in 2014.
The operatives also wanted to establish if the
said amount was transmitted by a top
presidential aide to a foreign leader, who has a
personal relationship with Sheriff.
The operatives, who invited the former
governor to their head office in Abuja,
questioned him specifically on where he got
the money to acquire the aircraft in the same
year that the controversial Boko Haram
ceasefire flopped.
The former governor, who was grilled for many
hours yesterday, was however allowed to go
home on administrative bail and asked to
return on today with some documents.
A source said: “Indeed, we interrogated
Sherriff for many hours yesterday and he
actually cooperated with our operatives and
that made it easy for us to grant him
administrative bail and asked him to report
back on Tuesday (today).
“We will continue with the interrogation of the
politician in order to determine how he came
by the aircraft and other items we are
investigating.”
Recall that with the purchase of the aircraft,
Sheriff topped the list of such fleet owners in
the country.
However, the other owners of private jets in
Nigeria are mostly top religious and
businessmen.