Chicason Group of Companies has finally revealed details into the
dealings of its chairman, Chief Alexander Okafor and an alleged
fraudster simply identified as ‘Amina Villa’, who reportedly duped the
businessman of N150 million and impersonated the first lady, Aisha
Buhari.
PoliticsNGR learned that last December, the Department of
State Services (DSS) arrested Mohammed for allegedly duping members of
the public by impersonating Aisha Buhari and Rashida Bello, wife of the
Kogi State governor.
A statement issued by Haruna Gamson, group head of corporate communications of the company, read;
necessary to explain what transpired between our organisation and the
lady known as Amina Mohammed (also known as Amina Villa), who was
paraded recently by the DSS.
“Sometime in July 2017, a traditional ruler approached the chairman/CEO of Chicason Group of
Companies, Chief Alexander Chika Okafor, and informed him that the
property beside Okafor’s residence in Ikoyi, Lagos, made up of two plots
belonging to the Court of Appeal, was up for sale by the Federal
Government implementation Committee on disposal of FG landed property.
The royal father said that he would have applied for it but was short of
funds, but asked Okafor to apply for it. He gave Okafor the forms to
fill for the property.
“Although the chairman of Chicason Group
had never bought any property from the Federal Government, he decided to
give this a try because of the seemingly trusted source. He got the
forms filled for the two plots through two companies under the Chicason
Group, Cason Travels Ltd and Uslasiya Nigeria Ltd.
“Two weeks after, he received a call from a lady, who was identified by Truecaller
as ‘Amina Villa.’ She introduced herself as the sister of the First
Lady. The lady said that some people brought the application forms by
our companies to her sister to assist in the procurement of the
property.
“Amina Villa said her sister asked her to confirm that
the identity of the owners of the companies used in the forms was
genuine. Subsequently, Amina Villa visited the Abuja office of the
Chicason Group for confirmation and promised to fix a meeting with her
sister upon her availability.
“On a later date, she called Okafor
and said she had arranged a meeting for him at the Villa with the First
Lady. By the time he arrived the Villa in the evening for the meeting,
his details were already in the system as an expected visitor. His
biometrics was taken and he was cleared.
“Amina received him and
took him to the First Lady’s lounge, where someone offered him water.
But he wondered why the lounge was so quiet and bereft of the expected
human activity. Amina apologised that the First Lady had to travel for
the lesser hajj that morning and that was why she made frantic effort
for Okafor to meet the First Lady the previous day.
“On hearing that the First Lady was not around, Okafor left the Villa immediately.
Amina, on two other different occasions that the First Lady travelled
out of the country, made calls to Okafor that reported on Truecaller
that she was calling from the country where the First Lady travelled to.
“With the benefit of hindsight, she was doing all that to build confidence by
demonstrating that she was in the company of the First Lady. On the
landed property, Amina said each of the plots of the property was
officially up for sale at N150 million.
“She asked that since Okafor was always travelling, that he should give her the money, so that
she could pay promptly from the account she controls and be in charge
of the transaction, to make it seamless.
“Okafor said he would pay for one plot first, and would pay for the second after the first had
been approved and documents released to him. He asked for the account
details and went on to make the payment totalling N150 million.
“At no stage of the conversation was the issue of bribery mentioned. We
have with us all the telephone and WhatsApp messages of the exchanges.
Our chairman insisted that an account number be provided, before making
any payment. No reasonable person would pay a bribe into a bank account
using his corporate or personal bank account.
“The only thing mentioned by Amina was that she would be paid a commission at the
successful completion of the transaction, which is normal in property
transactions. Few months after the payment, the traditional ruler
confirmed to our chairman that the documents were out.
“Amina also confirmed that there was an approval for the allocation of the plot
to our company and that she had the document. She then asked for a
commission of N20 million but Okafor insisted on documentary evidence of
the approval to be made available to him before releasing the
commission.
“It was from that point that the hide-and-seek
started, with excuses made each day on why the document could not be
presented. After months of hide-and-seek from Amina, our chairman
decided to contact officials at the Presidential Villa to report the
matter.
“He was asked to write a formal petition. The petition
led to the scrutiny of all the ladies working for the First Lady to
identify her, but none was Amina. The matter was referred to the DSS,
who tracked her and invited her. She initially denied having any
property transaction with Chicason Group but later confessed and
acknowledged collecting the money for the property purchase when some
evidence was presented to her.
“The matter is being handled by
the DSS, and we are waiting for the result from their investigation.
That was why we kept quiet all this while. However, this press release
was necessitated by the need to ensure that the image of our
organisation and the integrity of our chairman are not tarnished through
the presentation of inaccurate account of the event.
“When Mohammed was quizzed by the DSS, she had named Babachir Lawal, former
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), and one Moriyatu,
said to be a sister to Aisha Buhari, as her alleged accomplices.”
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