‘Former El-Rufai Chief Of Staff Implicates Ex-Governor In Money Laundering Case’

The former Chief of Staff to Nasir El-Rufai, Muhammad Bashir Sa’idu, has implicated the ex-Governor of Kaduna State in an ongoing money laundering case involving the alleged undervalued sale of state funds in foreign currency.

Sa’idu, who served as Commissioner of Finance during El-Rufai’s administration, was arraigned by security agencies on December 31, 2024, and remanded at the Kaduna Correctional Centre.

The charges against Sa’idu allege that he sold $45 million belonging to the Kaduna State Government at an undervalued rate of ₦ $410 per dollar, far below the parallel market rate of ₦ $498 per dollar at the time.

The alleged transaction caused the state to lose ₦ $3.96 billion.

Allegations And Confessional Statement

A security source who anonymously spoke with selected 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 severe penalties for violators, including a minimum of four years and a maximum of 14 years imprisonment, a fine of no less than five times the value of the proceeds of the crime, or both.