*Why Al-Makura Was Arrested
A former governor of Nasarawa State, Alhaji Tanko Al-Makura and his wife, Mairo, are facing interrogation by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over allegations bordering on breach of public trust and corruption.
Sources said the couple were picked up on Wednesday even and were being grilled at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja.
Details on the specific allegations for which they were being held had yet to emerge as of the time of this report.
The spokesperson for the anti-graft agency, Wilson Uwujaren, declined comments on the development, saying he had not been briefed.
Al-Makura was the Governor of Nasarawa State between 2011 and 2019 before he was elected a Senator, representing Nasarawa South Senatorial District at the National Assembly.
However, PREMIUM TIMES, an online newspaper reports that sources with understanding of some suspicious transactions involving the couple, their companies, including Ta’al hotel in Lafia, and some businesses, said the EFCC arrested the couple on suspicion of involvement in dirty money flow.
It was learnt that about 55 accounts controlled by the couple and their companies were involved in the suspicious transactions, amounting to billions of naira, when Al-Makura was the governor of Nasarawa State between 2011 and 2019.
In one of the accounts, less than $250 was lodged there in the two years preceding his assumption of office, sources said, adding that soon after he became governor, huge deposits started flowing in an apparently structured pattern.
Many deposits into this particular domiciliary account and others were made by businesses alleged to have carried out contracts for the state government.
“The transactions raised suspicion of money laundering or routing of proceeds of corruption,” one source said.
The sources added that the anti-graft agency could have found that the depositors were lodging bribes into the accounts.
In one case, one business entity paid over N200 million, broken into structured nine transactions, in a single day, August 9, 2016, into one of Al-Makura’s accounts, this newspaper learnt.
