The EFCC has arrested former Abuja Geographical
Information Service (AGIS) GM, Ms Jamila Tangaza.
Tangaza, who had been in detention in the past
one week, was battling for bail as at press time.
She has, however, been linked to N800 million
questionable contracts to her personal firm apart from benefiting from plots of
land from the ex-minister.
The source added that EFCC had grilled top
directors of the FCT administration. “As for Ms Jamila Tangaza, we arrested and
detained her because she was connected with the land scam and abuse of office.
“The ex-minister asked her to resign her
appointment with BBC and appointed her as a Senior Special Assistant on Media
and Information. But Bala allocated some plots of land to her to sell in order
to acquire a mansion in Asokoro District too. Her house was allegedly worth
N158million.
“Also, Jamila allegedly abused her office by
awarding N800million contracts to her company which is called Songbird
Multimedia.
“Her case was interesting. When she registered
the company with the Corporate Affairs Commission, she used a fictitious name
as the CEO of the company but she is the sole signatory to the company’s
account and her phone number is the point of contact with the firm.
“We have sent her signature on CAC document and
other specimen signatures collected from her to a forensic laboratory.
Following a court order, we detained her in the past few days but as at Friday,
she was pleading that we should grant her bail. We are looking into her
request.”
The top source denied insinuations that the
ex-BBC correspondent was handcuffed when she was taken to her office for a
search.
The source added: “You can verify from her what
transpired. From custody in EFCC, we went with her to her office to recover
some documents. We used the EFCC bus but along the way, she begged us to park
the bus away from the vicinity of AGIS where she is a director. She did not
want her staff and others to notice that she was brought to the office by EFCC
team.
“We obliged her request by parking outside AGIS.
We also didn’t allow policemen in uniform to follow her to the office. We
assigned plain-clothe operatives and even asked her if she wanted the only lady
in our team to follow her so that Jamila can blend with the crowd in AGIS
without anyone suspecting anything.
“She said all plain clothe operatives can follow
her. We did not put her in handcuffs. This is the extent we went based on her
request to protect her reputation and integrity. The story of Jamila being
handcuffed was rubbish.”
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