By Joseph Edegbo
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday discharged and acquitted former Group Managing Director, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, of the money laundering charge brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC
The Presiding Judge, Justice Ahmed Mohammed, held that the anti-graft agency failed to prove its case against the erstwhile NNPC boss.
The court ordered that monies the EFCC seized from Yakubu who was GMD of the NNPC between 2012 and 2014, should be returned to him.
The EFCC had on the strength of a tip-off by a whistleblower, raided Yakubu’s guest house situated at Sabon Tasha, Kaduna State in 2017 and discovered the sum of $9.7million and £74,000 which he hid in a fireproof safe inside the hiouse.