Alleged Money Laundering: El-Rufai’s Ex-Chief Of Staff Returns To Prison
Alhaji Bashir Sa’idu, the former Chief of Staff to Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, has been sent back to prison as the Kaduna State High Court adjourned the hearing of his bail application till Thursday, January 23, 2025.
Sa’idu, who also served as Commissioner for Finance in the El-Rufai administration, is facing a 10-count charge bordering on alleged money laundering, embezzlement, and stealing.
On Tuesday, when the case came up for mention before Justice Isa Aliyu, the 10 charges were read to the hearing of the defendant, to which he pleaded not guilty.
The charges, filed by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), alleged that Sa’idu sold $45m in hard currency belonging to the Kaduna State Government—equivalent to ₦18,450,000,000—at the significantly undervalued rate of ₦410 per dollar instead of the parallel market rate of ₦498 per dollar, with criminal intent, resulting in a ₦3,960,000,000 loss to the government.
The prosecution further alleged that the ₦3.96 billion discrepancy was laundered by Sa’idu in violation of Section 18 of the Money Laundering Prevention and Prohibition Act, 2022.
Counsel to the defendant, M.I. Abubakar, notified the court of a pending bail application and urged the court to grant his client bail, as he had already spent 21 days in custody since his arrest on January 2, 2025.
However, the prosecution counsel, Prof. Nasiru Aliyu, objected to the bail application, arguing that the law provides seven days for the prosecution to file its response.
After a 40-minute recess, Justice Aliyu ruled that the prosecution be given adequate time to file its response to the bail application and adjourned the case till January 23, 2025, for a hearing of the bail application.
Alleged Money Laundering: El-Rufai’s Ex-Chief Of Staff Returns To Prison is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
