US clears President's wife in alleged fraud case

The United States government has said it has no information on the alleged criminal offence committed in the country by Aisha Buhari, the President's wife.

Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose had in June alleged that Mrs Buhari was wanted in the US for her role in the $185 million Halliburton scandal.

Responding to a Punch enquiry on the matter, the acting Public Affairs Officer, US Consulate General, Lagos, Frank Sellin, said the government has no information to provide on the fraud allegation.

“Thank you for the inquiry.  We have no information to provide on this matter,” Sellin said.

Fayose, in his reaction to the freezing of his Zenith Bank accounts by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Governor alleged that Buhari's wife wired $170,000 toWilliams Jefferson, a US congressman American who was also indicted in the case.

Fayose had said: “Even the President cannot claim to be an angel. The estate he built in Abuja is known to us. His wife was indicted in the Halliburton scandal. When that American, Jefferson, was being sentenced, the President’s wife was mentioned as having wired $170,000 to Jefferson. Her name was on page 25 of the sentencing of Jefferson. We can serialise the judgment for people to see and read.”

However, a former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Lamorde, has since dismissed Fayose's claims, saying the Aisha Buhari mentioned in the scandal is not the President's wife, but someone else entirely.

“I can tell you authoritatively that the Aisha Buhari named in that case is not President Buhari’s wife, It is another Aisha Buhari entirely," he said.

Lamorde was the director of operations at the EFCC at the time the Halliburton scandal was on. Buhari removed him as the chairman of the anti-graft agency in December 2015.