Africa’s wealthiest man and businessman, Aliko Dangote, has expressed his dismay over the raid conducted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) at the Lagos headquarters of the Dangote Group, calling it an embarrassing incident, News About Nigeria reports.
He made this known while speaking in an interview on Tuesday.
Dangote noted that the visit by the EFCC operatives was just to cause embarrassment, adding that nobody was questioned or arrested.
Recall that the EFCC had visited the Lagos Head Office of the Dangote Group in January, stating that it was part of a probe into alleged preferential allocations of forex to the Dangote Group and 51 other companies under the Emefiele-led Central Bank of Nigeria.
EFCC had earlier written to the 52 companies directing them to provide documents supporting the allocation and utilisation of foreign exchange sold to them at official rates in the last 10 years.
While some companies complied with the directive, several others were said to have asked for time to get the proper documents.
However, reacting to this, an official of the Dangote Group noted that the firm had honoured the EFCC’s request and wondered why the commission chose to embarrass them.
“We don’t know why they (EFCC officials) came to our office again; we had earlier been invited to the office of the EFCC. As such, the Dangote officials took along all the documents and submitted them. We don’t know why they eventually decided to visit our office again.
“The question we are asking is: what did they come to take from our office when we had honoured their invitation? They left with empty hands because all the documents they wanted from us had been taken to them. The same EFCC that came to our office is the one giving information to the media that they are investigating us,’’ the official stated.
