- Ex-police chief, Tafa Balogun was arrested for money laundering
According to Thomas Carlyle, history is a mighty dramos, enacted upon the theatre of times, with suns for lamps and eternity for a background.
History is not meant to be ignored. History is a collection of historical occurrences. When we travel through time, we consider the unfortunate or fortunate events that influenced those moments.
In an effort to promote awareness for enlightenment and educational purposes, WITHIN NIGERIA focused on two primary events that occurred on March 28 in Nigeria history.
Ex-police chief, Tafa Balogun was arrested for money laundering
On this day, 28th of May in 2005, former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun was arrested by officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for money laundering.
This arrest came up barely weeks after Tafa Balogun suddenly resigned from office amid allegations of corruption.
A federal high court in Lagos on Tuesday granted a request by the EFCC for 2.7 billion naira (US $20 million) of funds, suspected to have been diverted by Balogun into five different bank accounts, to be frozen.
Balogun quit suddenly as inspector general of police in January at the same time as the EFCC announced that it had traced large sums of illicit money in 12 bank accounts to him. But he was neither arrested nor charged immediately.
Abayomi, his lawyer, has accused the financial crimes watchdog of “careless, unwarranted and unjustified abuse of authority” in arresting the former police chief. “The wound of the current harassment of Mr. Tafa Balogun will soon be healed by the proof of his innocence in an impartial court,” he said.
Balogun’s imminent trial appears to form part of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s new push against corruption. This went into full gear with the sacking of Education Minister Fabian Osuji over a bribery scandal.
Announcing Osuji’s dismissal in a national broadcast, Obasanjo said Senate President Adolphus Wabara and several legislators had together received a 55 million naira ($410,000) bribe from Osuji to increase his ministry’s budget allocation for 2005.
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