Jonathan’s aide gave BDC operator N1.6b – Witness

A bureau de change operator has confessed that aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan used him in laundering some of the $31 million dollars the EFCC found in four companies owned by Jonathan’s wife Patience.

Murtala Abubakar, a witness in the on-going trial of Waripamo-Owei Dudafa, told the Federal High Court in Lagos on Monday that he received $4 million in cash from Dudafa inside Aso Rock.

Between 2013 and 2015,  Abubakar said he received a total of N1.6 billion from Mr. Dudafa through Pluto Properties and Investment Limited, Avalon Global Property, Rotato Interlink Services, Seagate Property and Ebiwise Services Limited.

Cross-examined by Rotimi Oyedepo, counsel to the EFCC, Abubakar also said he had known Mr. Dudafa since his days as a Commissioner for Local Government in Bayelsa State under the administration of Governor Timipre Sylva.

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And the business between them, even until Dudafa became Jonathan’s yes-man, had always being forex transactions.

According to the bureau de change operator, Dudafa usually sent one Festus and Jahman who carried the dollars to him for the transaction and deposit into certain accounts Dudafa would later send in text messages to his Samsung phone now admitted and marked as exhibits.

The witness was confronted with exhibits A – B3 in which he identified all the transactions between himself and Dudafa from 2013 to 2015 both from his companies’ accounts and his personal account.

The EFCC arraigned Dudafa and Joseph Iwejuo on a 23-count charge of concealment, retention of proceeds of crime, and failure to furnish information, before Justice Mohammed Idris of the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court.