The recently appointed CEO of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) Aisha Rimi, has been discovered to have been previously indicted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the alleged diversion of Lagos state government funds to the tune of N3 billion, according to Peoples Gazzette.
The news medium says that in 2018, EFCC lawyer Olamide Sadiq made it known that the anti-graft agency was informed the dubious transfers after the National Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) traced suspicious “heavy inflows in excess of N3 billion from the Lagos state government Number Plate Production Authority” into the accounts of Rimi and Partners and Ekosina Investment Limited, both of which Ms Rimi was signatory.
The report says that she was the sole proprietor of the law firm.
“Investigations revealed that Aisha Rimi is the major partner in Rimi and Partners and she is also in control of Ekosina Investment Limited, a company seen to have received huge transfers from the Lagos state government Number Plate Production Authority,” Mr Sadiq said in 2018.
Her husband, Folorunsho Coker, was the managing director of the Number Plate Authority at that time and it was believed the government funds were diverted with his say-so, thereby making him the prime suspect in the matter and Ms Rimi may have been considered an accomplice in perpetrating the fraud.
The EFCC in thr suit listed her two companies were listed as the second and third respondents.
It was gathered that the, judge at the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court, Mohammed Idris had in 2018 ordered that 10 Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) accounts belonging to Ms Rimi and her shell companies be immediately frozen.
“From preliminary investigations by the commission, the second and third respondents were used to divert funds from the Lagos state government Number Plate Production Authority with the influence of Folorunsho Coker, who was the managing director of the Lagos state agency,” Mr Sadiq explained.
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