Nigerian banks neck deep in Pension fund theft

Nnamdi Felix/Abuja

In the wake of tales of mind blowing sums pilfered from the nation’s pension funds, a worrisome development emerged revealing how financial institutions breached banking regulations and procedures to aid fraud.

Findings show that an old generation bank, aided the pilfering and concealment of billions of Naira by a former Assistant Director at the Budget Office at the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Phina Ukamaka Chidi who is standing trial alongside her former boss, Alhaji Sani Shauibu Teidi before a Federal High Court in Abuja on an alleged N4.5 billion fraud.

The bank, through it’s Maitama- Abuja branch, Mr. Boniface Jirbo, colluded with Mrs. Chidi to conceal the sum of N147 million through an account opened in the name of Pam Investment Properties accounts which the bank opened with forged documents and fake Drivers’ License.

The embattled former Assistant Director opened two fraudulent accounts with the bank using different Drivers’ License bearing Mrs. Phina Chidi’s passport photographs but with different names.

In one of the accounts, with number 04970030002742, investigators found that the former Assistant Director laundered the sum of N560 million through the account with an outstanding balance of N500 million in the account.

In the other account maintained at the bank, a domiciliary account, with number 04970131001596, the sum of $2,150 million was discovered to have been laundered through the account while $2 million was still in the account as at the time the bubble busted for the pension looters.

In response to investigator’s demand for information on the position of both accounts, the bank stated that Mrs. Chidi opened one of the Pam Investment Properties account with an elderly woman’s passport photograph on a forged drivers’ license and had transferred part of the laundered funds in the account to yet another fraudulent account maintained by the woman in yet another bank.

The address used by Mrs. Chidi in opening the accounts were non existent indicating that the bank did not carry out the “Know Your Customer” mandate as directed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, which entails physical verification of addresses of prospective account openers.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission which is prosecuting the pension looters before Justice Adamu Bello at the Federal High Court in Abuja, stated that accused persons conspired and swindled the Federal Government of N4.5 billion through 130 bogus contracts purportedly awarded to 25 different companies between 2008 and 2010.

Beside Sani Teidi and Mrs Phina Chidi, others standing trial in the alleged scam are Aliyu Bello, Abdullahi Omeiza, Garba Abdullahi Tahir and Emmanuel Olanipekun.

The anti graft agency equally joined some corporate entities that were said to be instrumental to the alleged fraud, as co-defendants in the suit.