Identity of ex-female minister who allegedly owns N2.5bn In housemaid’s account revealed (see photo)

The identity of a former female minister who allegedly owns the N2.5bn traced to the account of her housemaid has been revealed.

Earlier report did not name the said minister, but a report by SaharaReporters revealed that former Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, who is now a senator representing Anambra State in the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the unnamed ex-female minister.

According to the report, two EFCC sources confirmed that the bank account and its huge deposits had been opened and operated without the knowledge of the former minister’s housemaid.

“Senator Oduah apparently opened the account with her housemaid’s name, image, and details without the housemaid knowing about it,” said one EFCC agent familiar with the scandal.

Another EFCC source the report said confirmed that Ms. Oduah had been going around to some top officials of the Muhammadu Buhari administration seeking their help to scuttle her impending trial.Last week, she asked for a meeting with EFCC chairman Ibrahim Magu, claiming she wanted to meet in her official capacity as a senator.

The two EFCC sources who spoke on the “housemaid” account disclosed that Ms. Oduah was the sole signatory to the account, adding that they were still connecting the dots to uncover how the ex-Aviation Minister managed to pull off such a money laundering operation.

“As of last week, the account was still active and contained over N2.5 billion,” said one EFCC source.

He added that he could not ascertain whether the EFCC chairman, who is currently traveling in Saudi Arabia for lesser hajj, had ordered the freezing of the account.

EFCC sources revealed that the discovery of the “maid” account meant that the former minister must have stolen as much as N5.6 billion so far from the Aviation Ministry’s funds during her ministerial term.

It was earlier reported that EFCC investigators had so far determined that Ms. Oduah split N3.6 billion that she acquired illegally among eight companies.

However, Stella Oduah has reacted to the reports, calling them “totally false, baseless and at best the imagination of the platform.”

In the statement, signed by Francisca Onyeisi, head of communications,Ms. Oduah said that if the reports were true, she would have been arrested long before now, especially at a time when the EFCC is “freezing accounts and going after opposition governors who enjoy same level of immunity as the president.”

The former minister, therefore, urged her supporters and the general public to ignore the reports, saying she had “made a mark in oil and gas and Agricultural businesses before joining politics.”

Ms. Oduah was removed from office in February 2014 after she was found to have received armoured BMW cars, worth N255million, from an agency she supervised.