TANIMO YAKUBU KURFI, a former chief economic adviser to late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, may have played a significant role in the looting spree and mysterious disappearance of huge funds from the Aso Rock Presidential villa, shortly after the death of the late president in 2009.
Several sources within Nigerian security and civil leadership community confirmed to sharpedgenews.com that there are enough reasons to believe that Mallam Kurfi, a well-known tale-spinner during the beleaguered Yar’Adua presidency, feathered his own nests by using his privileged access in Aso Rock to steal public funds.
Specifically, sharpedgenews.com reliably traced the sudden disappearance of a massive sum of four hundred million pounds sterling to Tanimo Yakubu Kurfi.
How Kurfi took possession of the money before the death of Yar’Adua remains unclear.
However, a source close to Mallam Kurfi volunteered a yet to be denied allegation that some aides around the fallen adviser set him up by tipping some dare-devil robbers, who in turn dispossessed him of the entire money at gun-point in Kaduna.
According to investigative sources, Kurfi returned to Abuja, panting and perspiring in an air-conditioned room. “He was badly shaken but would not divulge his thoughts to anyone,” said the source.
The Presidential Villa in Abuja is said to maintain huge vaults of various international currencies. It is not known whether the practice still holds, but Generals Babangida, Abacha and Abdusalami allegedly kept monies within the Presidential Villa in order to maintain systemic stability.
Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, a two-term elected civilian president, also allegedly indulged himself with the same conduct. It was therefore not strange to see his successor, the late President Yar’Adua, engage himself with the same pattern.
The picture of President Yar’Adua’s son flaunting money and automatic weapons was an internet sensation that Nigerians still remember.
Only recently, a Swiss bank allegedly credited the Nigerian government account with a $700m refund of funds stolen and laundered by the late despotic ruler, Sanni Abacha. Also this weekend, media reports claimed that a whopping N2.1billion was pilfered from the Nigerian Mint and Security Printing outfit.
But the most bizarre betrayal of taxpayers was the huge theft carried out by the unscrupulous economic adviser, Tanimo Kurfi, who single-handedly hauled an unauthorized foreign currency amount of £400m (about twelve billion naira) away – about the equivalent of what could give new life to Nigeria’s troubled economy.
A source said that it was “unthinkable that someone entrusted with the task of providing quality advice would gravitate towards brazen stealing.”
Nigerian intelligence goons believe that such unexplained missing funds may be part of what is fuelling the insurgencies in some parts of the country, as the funds may have been deployed towards financing the purchase of deadly arms and ammunition.
Kurfi and other massive fund looters, along with the looted funds lost to armed robbers, have gone underground, and have not been seen in recent times playing any active role in politics.
Sharpedgenews.com also learned that Kurfi is a heavy spender for the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Katsina state, and other clandestine movements programmed to swing into political moulds in the nearest future.
However, a source close to General Muhammadu Buhari, the standard-bearer of CPC, said that the Daura-born presidential candidate may not be aware of such donations from Kurfi, especially in view of the fact that similar financial contributions by a son of the late dictator Sanni Abacha in Kano State, Mohammed, were rebuffed.