The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has summoned officials of the Dangote Group, owned by billionaire Aliko Dangote, to appear in Abuja next week with detailed documents on their foreign exchange transactions for the past nine years, Politics Nigeria has gathered.
This development comes amid an ongoing investigation into alleged preferential forex allocations made by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the leadership of former Governor Godwin Emefiele.
On Thursday, EFCC operatives stormed the Dangote Industries Limited headquarters in Ikoyi, Lagos, as part of the investigation. While they seized some documents, sources revealed these did not cover all the required transactions. Consequently, the officials were summoned to Abuja on Tuesday to provide comprehensive documentation.
Sources confirmed that Dangote was not in the country during the raid but would return next week to address the issue personally. He is reportedly aware of the EFCC’s demands, though it remains unclear if he was informed prior to the raid, The Punch Newspaper reports.
“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,” the newspaper quoted an EFCC official as saying.
The newspaper also reports that an official of the Dangote Group confirmed that some key personnel of the company were currently gathering the documents requested by the EFCC to clear the company of any wrongdoing.
It has also been confirmed that the firm had sent some documents and key members of staff to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja regarding the ongoing investigation.
The 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.”
The source added, “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.”
