Details of How Forbes’ wealthiest African woman, Bola Shagaya, transferred N500 million to Patience Jonathan.

Details have emerged how Forbes’ wealthiest African woman Bola Shagaya made suspicious bank transaction to accounts belonging to former Nigeria’s first lady Patience Jonathan. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said Shagaya, a Nigerian business woman has been under the commission’s investigation for about six month. The commission has also frozen one of Shagaya’s bank account.

Punch reports that the commission began investigating the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bolmus Group International – a diversified Nigerian conglomerate with interests in oil, real estate, banking, communications and photography – due to her links with Patience. 

Shagaya’s account with unity bank which had a balance of N500 million was frozen by the commission. A source within the commission said: “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. The source also 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.

“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,” the source said.

However, reacting the reports, the business woman said she cared less about such reports. She said: “Please, don’t call this number. I am sleeping. Write anything you want to write.” Meanwhile, the EFCC had earlier frozen all accounts belonging to the former first lady.

However, Patience had also claimed that part of the funds confiscated by the commission belonged to her late mother. She has also accused the commission’s operatives of being thieves and lying against her.