The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has summoned some officials of the Dangote Group to Abuja to bring detailed documents on foreign exchange transactions by the conglomerate covering the last nine years.
Operatives of the EFCC recently stormed the headquarters of Dangote Industries Limited in Ikoyi, Lagos, in furtherance of the investigation into the alleged abuse of the foreign exchange allocations by former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.
The commission is investigating the alleged preferential allocations of forex to the Dangote Group owned by billionaire Aliko Dangote and 51 other companies by the Emefiele-led CBN.
Reports have it that operatives of the EFCC carted away some documents from the Group’s Head Office but they did not cover all the transactions, hence the decision to summon the officials to come with the documents to their Abuja office on Tuesday.
The Punch reported that a top EFCC official, who confirmed the summon to Abuja, revealed that senior executives of the company had been asked to supply the commission with what he called “detailed and unambiguous documents on the demands by the commission.”
Also, the source added that the officials would be expected at the agency’s office on Tuesday.
The official said: “Yes, they (Dangote officials) asked for time to enable them to get all the necessary documents, which was granted. The idea is not to be seen to be witch-hunting anyone. What the commission wants is to get evidence and details of how government funds were allocated and that is all.”
While confirming the development, a Dangote official stated: “Yes, we were aware of the ongoing investigation by the EFCC and our people were at the headquarters in Abuja with some of the requested documents as of the time its operatives invaded our Lagos office in what I will describe as a show-off.
“We are a law-abiding group, but it is difficult to get all the documents covering the tenure of Emefiele at once, but our people are working at night to get all the relevant documents, which will be sent to the anti-graft agency next week.”
“As of the time of the raid, our people were in Abuja. We have been sleeping in the office to make sure that we get all the documents the EFCC requires for the investigation.
“We are talking about documents from 2014 to June 2023. It is a lot of documents and it will take time to get all of them readily available. We have, however, sent the ones we have at our immediate disposal and they are with the commission.
“The raid was just a way of embarrassing us and an act of show-off. We are law-abiding people running a legitimate business and we are cooperating with the investigation.”
