Dangote Group Clarifies EFCC Visit to Head Office, Denies Wrongdoing

On Saturday, Aliko Dangote, the Chairman of the Dangote Group, through its management, released a 10-point statement clarifying the recent widely reported visit by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officials to the company’s Lagos Head Office investigating forex allocations during Godwin Emefiele’s tenure as CBN Governor.

While Dangote clarified EFCC’s visit, they explained that the company received a letter from EFCC in early December 2023 requesting details of all foreign exchange allocated by the CBN from 2014 till the present.

“We understand similar letters were sent to 51 other Groups of companies requesting for the same information spanning the same period.” The statement read.

According to the statement, the company responded to the EFCC, acknowledging the receipt of their letter whilst seeking clarification on the subsidiaries or companies within the Group that they required information on. Additionally, the company also requested more time to properly compile and organize the extensive ten-year documentation as requested by the EFCC.

However, the statement read, “The EFCC did not provide the clarification sought and also did not honor our request for an extension and insisted on receiving the complete set of documents within the limited timeframe.

“Despite this constraint, we assured the EFCC of our commitment to providing the information and pledged to share documents in batches as we complete the compilation.

“On 4 January 2024, our team delivered the first batch of documents to the EFCC. However, officers of the EFCC did not accept the documents, insisting on visiting our offices to collect the same set of documents directly.

“Whilst our representatives were still at the EFCC’s office to deliver the documents, a team of their officers proceeded to visit our offices to demand the same documents in a manner that appeared designed to cause us unwarranted embarrassment.” 

Dangote noted the fact that during the visit to the Company’s Head office, the EFCC officials did not take any documents or files as those had already been delivered to their office. 

They also emphasized that, to their knowledge, no accusations of wrongdoing have been made against any company within their Group, and at present, they are only responding to a request for information to assist the EFCC with their ongoing investigation. 

While calling for the understanding and patience of their stakeholders as they keep them informed of further developments, Dangote assured the EFCC of their continued cooperation in providing all necessary information requested during their investigation. 

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