A former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi is among top politicians and other high-profile persons in Nigerians named in the Pandora Papers scandal for flouting “extant laws and legislations as they hide these assets,” Premium Times reported.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ),
found links between almost 1,000 companies in offshore havens and 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including more than a dozen serving heads of state and government, country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and others.
The first series published on Monday revealed that Peter Obi of keeping secret assets he did not declare to Nigeria’s Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
According to Premium Times report, in 2010, more than four years after Obi became governor, he allgedly set up his first discreet company in the British Virgin Island, Gabriella Investments Limited. He named the company after his daughter.
Premium Times reports that Obi contracted Acces International, a secrecy enabler in Monaco, France, to help him incorporate an offshore entity in one of the world’s most notorious tax havens noted for providing conduits for the wealthy and privileged corrupt political elites to hide stolen cash.
The newspaper said Obi also paid Acces International to provide nominee directors for the company — these directors are residents of tax havens paid to sit on boards of companies to hide the identities of real owners of offshore firms.
Acces International officials, who reportedly took briefs from Obi and or his representatives, headed to the British Virgin Island where they contracted a local registered agent – Aleman Cordero Galindo & Lee Trust (BVI) Limited (Alcogal) — to set up Gabriella Investments Limited for the former governor.
Obi, the newspaper added, claimed he could not have made such a declaration on assets he co-owned with others.
“I don’t declare what is owned with others. If my family owns something I won’t declare it. I didn’t declare anything I jointly owed with anyone,” Premium Times quoted the former governor as saying.
Pandora Papers investigation — involving some 600 journalists from media including The Washington Post, the BBC, The Guardian, and Nigeria’s Premium Times — is based on the leak of some 11.9 million documents from 14 financial services companies around the world.
Premium Times said contents of the document will reveal how some of the most influential Nigerians – a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, current and former state governors, past and present lawmakers, businesspeople, a popular pastor, and many others – set up shell companies, and sometimes warehouse huge financial assets, in notorious secrecy jurisdictions.