Anyim Pius Anyim Released, Passport Seized

The Economic and Financial crimes commission, EFCC has released embattled former SGF, Anyim Pius Anyim after detaining him over an alleged Centenary city fraud.

Recall that the EFCC had earlier said it had obtained a warrant to detain Anyim for 30 days.It was discovered that Anyim was released on Tuesday after handing over his passport to the EFCC.

The former SGF was also instructed to report to the commission every two weeks and also return some of the money traced to him. A source at the EFCC said, “Anyim was released on administrative bail after he had surrendered his passport. He is expected to return some money to the EFCC and also report back every two weeks.”

Anyim is being investigated for allegedly collecting N520m from a former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), on the eve of the 2015 presidential election.

He also allegedly awarded contracts worth N13bn to companies he had interests in.

Anyim, who is a former Senate President, is the most senior former government official under the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s regime to ever be arrested by the EFCC.

Apart from allegedly receiving funds from Dasuki, the former SGF was accused of false assets declaration and using proxies and companies in which he had interest to corner contracts from the ecological funds.The source said Anyim allegedly awarded contracts to some companies linked to him through which ecological funds were diverted.

The companies include: Foundation Years Limited, Precious Integrated, Precious Petroleum, Mak & Mak, Chap Construction, Eldyke Engineering, Pryke Limited, Chipa Nigeria Limited, Prima A11 Limited, Pima International, Chanto Engineering, Ishiagu Microfinance Bank, Mulak Ventures, Vitro Engineering and Tip Top Nigeria.

The source added, “Anyim was SGF from May 2011 to May 29, 2015. During this period, specifically May 2012 to May 2015, the SGF Ecological Fund Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria received an inflow of N58,146,983,677.85.

From this fund, three of the companies linked to Anyim, Foundation Years, Obis Associate and Eldyke Engineering received contracts worth over N13bn. Foundation Years alone received a net payment of N10,308,017,838.85 between 2014 and 2015.”