Alhaji Muhammad Bashir Sa’idu, former Chief of Staff to Malam Nasir El-Rufai, has implicated his former principal in a confessional statement related to an ongoing money laundering case against him.
It will be recalled that the Chief Magistrate Court in Rigasa remanded Sa’idu at the Kaduna Correctional Centre following his arrest and arraignment by security agencies on 31 December 2024.
The charges against the former Chief of Staff allege that he sold $45 million in hard currency belonging to the Kaduna State Government—equivalent to ₦18,450,000,000—at the significantly undervalued rate of ₦410 per dollar.
This was instead of the parallel market rate of ₦498 per dollar, with criminal intent, resulting in a ₦3,960,000,000 loss to the government.
According to the prosecution, the offence allegedly took place in 2022, when Sa’idu served as Commissioner of Finance in the El-Rufai administration.
The prosecution further alleged that the ₦3,960,000,000 discrepancy was laundered by Sa’idu, in violation of Section 18 of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
A security source, speaking anonymously to select journalists in Kaduna, disclosed that Sa’idu implicated El-Rufai in his confessional statement to the police.
The accused reportedly stated, “The procedure for currency conversion was not the decision of the Commissioner of Finance but that of His Excellency, the then Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai. Whenever the need arose to convert funds to naira, the Governor would direct how much to convert. Bids from various buyers were obtained, and in most cases, the bids I forwarded to His Excellency for approval were higher than those available in the parallel market.”
Section 18(3) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, stipulates that anyone who violates subsection (2) is liable, upon conviction, to imprisonment for a term of not less than four years and not more than 14 years, a fine of no less than five times the value of the proceeds of the crime, or both. (The Nation)
