The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it has secured a court order against the Chief Executive Officer of Sujimoto Luxury Construction Limited, Sijibomi Ogundele.
Ogundele is being probed by the anti-graft agency over failure to deliver 22 Smart Green School projects in Enugu State.
His company was paid over N5.7bn by the state government for the project.
Following the remand order, Ogundele would now have to explaine how he spent the N5.7billion without executing the contract.
Also, the EFCC might have to seek a fresh court order to seize the funds in Ogundele’s personal and company’s accounts, which had earlier been frozen.
The order for his remand was obtained from a !Magistrate Court to detain him until the anti-graft agency was able to complete investigation.
Before now, both the personal accounts of Ogundele and Sujimoto Luxury Construction Limited had earlier been frozen in addition to seizing his international passport.
The EFCC had declared Ogundele wanted two weeks ago for alleged money laundering.
But, he came out on social media to blame the Enugu State Government for the EFCC action, saying the contract was underpriced, also citing inflation as reasons for the abandonment.
Enugu State responded moments later, alleging that the suspect disappeared after collecting N5.7 billion as 50 per cent mobilization fee to deliver 22 Smart Green Schools in six months, being February 2025.
The state government said, “The Enugu State Government paid the sum of N5,762,565,475.25, representing 50 per cent of the contract sum, in order to fast-track the projects at all the sites.
“Rather than play to the rules of the contract, Mr. Ogundele resorted to shoddy jobs and the use of inexperienced workers and quack engineers.
“None of his sites little jobs done on the sites met the structural integrity of the projects as specified in the structural drawing.
“Worse still, he vanished into thin air with the money. All efforts made by the government to get him to a roundtable to discuss the quality and progress of work proved abortive.
“He equally refused to attend the periodic projects briefing organised by the state government for all contractors or take numerous calls and messages put across to him.
“In fact, he practically abandoned the sites, leaving the Enugu State Government with no other choice but to petition the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover the funds paid to him.
“A joint team of officers of the Enugu State Ministry of Works and Infrastructure and the EFCC visited the 22 sites to evaluate the progress of work on May 8 and 9, 2025, where it was clearly established that there had been minimal to no significant work done at the said sites one year after the contract award.
“In some cases, he fraudulently did not do excavation for all the blocks in site.
“It is also on record that he has not shown up at the sites or made himself available to either the state government or the law enforcement agencies
“The government has since retaken and handed over the sites to new firms, which have no choice but to start the construction afresh.
“It is equally noteworthy that there were other firms awarded multiple number of Smart Green School projects and they are delivering quality jobs on target.”
The Enugu State Government’s statement was accompanied with pictures of the project sites as abandoned by Sujimoto, which were taken by the joint team of officials of the state government and operatives of the EFCC during the May 8 and 9 site visits, showing that the project sites were mostly at the levels of foundation and DPC, with a few at the stage of block work.
