EFCC, Immigration Service Place Nigerian Navy Ex-Director On Watch List Over N2billion Fraud

Rear Admiral Tahir Yusuf (retd.), a former Director of Nigerian Navy Accounts, on the wanted list of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has again been placed on the watch list of the Nigeria Immigration Service, according to SaharaReporters.

Sources told SaharaReporters that the EFCC in a letter to the Comptroller General of the NIS earlier in the month requested the agency to place Yusuf on the watch list and to inform it anytime the retired navy top officer was travelling out of the country from any of the international airports and other points of entry and exit.

The development comes a few days after SaharaReporters exclusively reported that the former military officer was planning to flee the country.

“He is now on our watch list again, the EFCC requested the NIS to place him on watch list and inform it anytime he is travelling out of the country from any of the international airports and other points of entry and exit,” a senior immigration officer told SaharaReporters.

The EFCC had accused Yusuf of stealing N2billion belonging to the Nigerian government while serving as Director of Nigerian Navy Accounts.

In 2020, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the permanent forfeiture of about N500 million found to be fraudulently amassed by the former military officer to the Nigerian government.

The total amount forfeited was N392,695,857.87, including $91,955.38 and the sum of £15,050 held in domiciliary accounts.

Yusuf, previously second-in-command to the Chief of Account and Budget, Naval Headquarters (NHQ), held the cash in seven accounts- both private and corporate in two banks.

The seven accounts were operated under the name of a company, Bitmas Enterprise, in Zenith Bank while two were held in Yusuf’s name in the defunct Skye Bank, now Polaris Bank.

Following the forfeiture, SaharaReporters gathered that Yusuf fled Nigeria to Dubai, United Arab Emirate.

The EFCC and National Intelligence Agency also asked the Nigeria Immigration Service and Interpol to place him on a watch list and have him arrested at the point of entry or exit.

However, Yusuf sneaked back to the country in October 2021 after he illegally obtained an international passport with the help of some corrupt government officials through the Niger Republic, a source had told SaharaReporters.

Following the release of different leaked audios of an EFCC operative, Mohammed Idris, giving hints on how to defeat the anti-graft commission to his younger brother, Abdulbari, sources told SaharaReporters that the retired military officer planned to flee the country over the fear of being arrested.

“The retired Admiral has over the past month been meeting Emirs to intercede on his behalf but it seems that is not working, so the new plan is to sneak out through Chad, cause he is scared he might be arrested any day soon with all the recent developments,” one of the sources had said.