Pioneer Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, has told Premium Times the agency planned the arrest of a woman allegedly posing as Mrs Aisha Buhari while he was in charge.
The said Aisha was mentioned in the bribery scandal of a former United States congressman, William Jefferson.
Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, had on Monday accused wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari, as the one indicted in a report on the scandal.
Ribadu has now narrated how the EFCC during his tenure in conjunction with US authorities almost arrested the impostor.
“She is a different person and has lived in the U.S. for years. The EFCC was working with U.S. authority to arrest her before I left the commission. She was using the Buhari name for influence.
“The EFCC laid ambush to see if she would come into the country so she could be arrested. I didn’t know what happened to the plan to arrest here after I left,” he said.
Ribadu however said if Nigerian authorities were still interested in the case it was easy to establish her real name.
He said this should not be a problem for investigators because she recently renewed her passport at the Nigeria embassy in Washington and they should still have a file on her.
Ribadu’s statement corroborates that of his successor at EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, who said on Tuesday that President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife was not the person mentioned in the scandal as alleged by Fayose.
Ribadu was EFCC chairman from inception in 2003 to 2007.
