A Federal High Court in Kaduna has refused the bail motion of Bashir Saidu, the former Chief of Staff to the state’s immediate past Governor, Nasir El-Rufai.
Saidu, a former Commissioner for Finance under the El-Rufai administration, was charged with ten charges of money laundering, embezzlement, and theft of public monies belonging to the Kaduna State Government.
On January 2, 2025, the police detained him and remanded him at the Kaduna Correctional Centre in the state capital.
However, when the matter was brought before Justice Isa Aliyu on Tuesday, the defendant pleaded not guilty to the accusations presented to him.
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Part of the allegations claimed that Saidu sold $45 million in hard currency belonging to the Kaduna State Government—equivalent to N18,450,000,000—at a considerably undervalued rate of N410 per dollar, rather than the parallel market pricing of N498 per dollar. The prosecution argued that this was done with criminal intent, resulting in a loss of N3.9 billion for the government.
According to the prosecution, the alleged offense occurred in 2022, while the defendant was serving as Commissioner of Finance in the El-Rufai administration.
According to the prosecution, Saidu laundered more than three billion naira in breach of Section 18 of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022.
While the defendant’s counsel, M. I. Abubakar, told the court of a pending bail application and urged the court to give his client bail after 21 days in detention, the prosecution counsel, Professor Nasiru Aliyu, opposed it.
He contended that the law gives the prosecution seven days to respond to the bail application.
Justice Aliyu ruled that the prosecution be given the time allowed by law to file its defense to the bail application.
The case was so deferred until January 23, 2025, for the hearing of the bail application.
