Money Laundering: Former Chief Of Staff Implicates El-Rufai

The former chief of staff to former governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, Alhaji Muhammad Bashir Sa’idu, has implicated his former principal in a confessional statement about 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 December 31, 2024.

The charges against the former chief of staff include that he sold $45 million in hard currency belonging to the Kaduna State Government—equivalent to N18,450,000,000—at the significantly undervalued rate of N410 per dollar. This was instead of the parallel market rate of N498 per dollar, with criminal intent, resulting in a N3,960,000,000 loss to the government.

According to the prosecution, the offence allegedly occurred in 2022, when Sa’idu served as commissioner of finance in the El-Rufai administration.

The prosecution further alleged that Sa’idu laundered the N3,960,000,000 discrepancy in violation of Section 18 of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.

Speaking anonymously to some journalists in Kaduna, a security source 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.