How Suswam instructed me to sell Benue shares – Witness

Aluyi Victor, Portfolio Manager of Elixir Investment Partners Limited, a brokerage firm, testifying at the on-going trial of a former governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, and his Commissioner of Finance, Omadachi Okolobia, on March 2, 2016 told Justice A. R. Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja, that the company was given oral instruction to sell shares belonging to the state.

According to him, sales of the Benue State-owned shares yielded N9,411,078,000.61.
Led in evidence by the prosecuting counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, he told the court that sometime in January 2014, the company made a presentation to the state’s executive on the need “to consolidate its financial assets in order for it to be properly managed for optimal returns”.
He said, “Elixir got a verbal instruction from the former commissioner to consolidate the shares from various stock brokering houses, which was valued at about N25.5 billion and made up predominantly of Dangote Cement and Julius Berger shares.”
He told the court that the instruction from Okolobia was handed down to the managing director of the company, ordering that the money made from the sales be paid into three different bank accounts.
Based on the instruction, a total of N1 billion was paid to Benue Investment and Property Company Limited, and N5.3 billion to Benue State Ministry of Finance.
He added that a third payment of N3,111,008,018.51 being part of the money made from the sale of the shares, was credited into the Zenith Bank account of Fanffash Resources, a bureau de change firm owned by Abubakar Umar.

He said, “Elixir got a verbal instruction from the former commissioner to consolidate the shares from various stock brokering houses, which was valued at about N25.5 billion and made up predominantly of Dangote Cement and Julius Berger shares.”
He told the court that the instruction from Okolobia was handed down to the managing director of the company, ordering that the money made from the sales be paid into three different bank accounts.
Based on the instruction, a total of N1 billion was paid to Benue Investment and Property Company Limited, and N5.3 billion to Benue State Ministry of Finance.
He added that a third payment of N3,111,008,018.51 being part of the money made from the sale of the shares, was credited into the Zenith Bank account of Fanffash Resources, a bureau de change firm owned by Abubakar Umar.