Former President Muhammadu Buhari’s ex-personal assistant, Tunde Sabiu Yusuf and billionaire businessman and oil mogul, Alhaji Auwalu Abdullahi Rano, aka AA Rano, never at any time fought over any $400million looted fund, First News investigations have revealed.
Investigations by our correspondent also revealed that reports that Sabiu slapped AA Rano for allegedly failing to account for a purported $400million he gave the billionaire businessman for safe keeping were not true.
Our investigation further revealed that such an incident between Buhari’s ex-aide and AA Rano never occurred at any point in time, anywhere, as there has never been any business relationship between both men to warrant any exchange of funds.
It was also discovered in the course of our investigations that President Bola Tinubu’s Special Investigator for the Central Bank of Nigeria, Jim Obazee, who has since been investigating Sabiu, has not found any trace of AA Rano’s involvement in the alleged looting of any $400million fund by former President Buhari’s ex-personal assistant.
Meanwhile, Investigation by our correspondent further revealed that none of the individuals used by Sabiu to siphon funds from the government purse under the Buhari administration was from the North. Rather, it was discovered that the former president’s aide used individuals from the South as well as companies owned by Southerners to siphon public funds.
This discovery has been corroborated by security sources claiming that the office of the Special Investigator recently discovered that everybody used by Sabiu to siphon money was Southern individuals and companies owned by them.
“We’ve not found out that Sabiu gave any $400m to AA Rano and both of them never fought over such money,” a security source told our correspondent.
Efforts by our correspondent to speak with both Sabiu and AA Rano on the matter proved abortive as none of them could be reached as of press time.
But a chieftain of the umbrella Northern socio-political group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), who pleaded not to be identified, described the media report accusing AA Rano of collecting $400million from Sabiu as “wicked, malicious, in bad taste and aimed at maligning a gentleman businessman. AA Rano that we know has never had any business relationship with Tunde Sabiu. None at all! And he’ll never get involved in such illegal and unpatriotic act. So, that $400million deal is just a figment of the imagination of the writer of that story.”
Recall that recently, an online media report (not First News) had claimed that both Sabiu and AA Rano had a fight over the inability of the billionaire businessman and oil mogul to properly account for the $400m he gave him to keep for him.
The report also alleged that Rano had allegedly been helping Sabiu to launder stolen billions by investing the illegal funds in properties, maritime, oil and air transport businesses.
The two men, according to the report, however, fell out following disagreements that arose over the mismanagement of the stolen funds allegedly by AA Rano.