The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has frozen one of the accounts of Mrs. Bola Shagaya. Mrs. Shagaya is a businesswoman who is described by Forbes magazine as one of the richest women in Africa.
It was learnt that Mrs. Shagaya’s account with Unity Bank with a balance of N500m was frozen because of a suspected link to the former First Lady, Patience Jonathan who is presently under investigation by the government.
Mrs. Shagaya is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bolmus Group International – a Nigerian conglomerate with interests in oil, real estate, banking, communications and photography. She is the also the Managing Director of Practoil Limited.
According to a Punch source: “When we were investigating Patience and looking into her accounts, we discovered that Bola Shagaya had been making huge and regular payments into her (Patience’s) bank account.
“We then discovered that the monies were kickbacks. The Ministry of Trade and Investment gave suspicious commission to Shagaya’s company on every crude oil sent abroad. The commission was put in an account for Bola Shagaya. The money will then go to Patience’s account. So we started investigating her.
“We were able to trace the N500m to her account at Unity Bank. So, we placed a ‘No Debit Order’ on the account.”
The source said when Shagaya realized that her account had been frozen, she rushed down to the bank and tried to use her position as a board member of the bank to lift the restriction.
The detective added, “When she heard about the restriction, she ran down to the bank to stop the order from being carried out. We then called the bank to let them know that doing such would amount to a criminal conspiracy. At that point, she had no choice.”
