Former minister of power and steel, Olu Agunloye has been remanded in Kuje prison pending the perfection of bail conditions, after being charged with fraud of over the $6 billion Mambilla hydropower contract by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Agunloye pleaded not guilty to the charges read against him when he was brought before the judge of a federal high court in Abuja, Donatus Okorowo.
The former minister was declared wanted on December 13 over alleged corruption.
The anti-graft agency had asked members of the public with useful information about Agunloye’s whereabouts to contact the agency.
Subsequently, Agunloye turned himself in after being declared wanted, according to a source.
“Since December 14, 2023, a day after we declared him wanted, was when he turned himself in and since then he has been with us,” the source said.
In September, it was reported that EFCC had tracked down Agunloye’s bank accounts to be the source of several dubious payments made by Sunrise Power and Transmission Ltd.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo also challenged Agunloye to tell Nigerians where he derived the authority to award a $6 billion contract to Sunrise for the Mambilla hydropower project in 2003.
Reacting to this, Agunloye said the government was not obliged to pay a kobo to Sunrise under the build, operate, and transfer (BOT) agreement as it was to be fully funded by the newly registered company, whose declared assets were worth less than $2,000 at the time.
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