How Alex Badeh hid foreign currencies in kettles - Witness

Air Chief Alex Badeh, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) under former President Goodluck Jonathan was found with the sum of $1million and land documents, a prosecution witness has told a court in Abuja.

Goji Mohammed, the witness told a Federal High Court presided over by Justice Okon Abang that Badeh who is standing trial on a 10-count charge of criminal breach of trust and money laundering of over N3 billion alongside Iyalikam Nigeria Ltd, a company believed to be owned by him, was actually was released from detention after he was arrested for corruption charges, and taken to his residence at 2 Nelson Mandela Street, Asokoro, Abuja where documents for landed properties were recovered.

Badeh was a service chief in the heat of the atrocities committed by the Boko Haram insurgents in the north-east and is alleged to have corruptly enriched himself.

Daily Trust reports that Mohammed, who was led in evidence by EFCC counsel, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) narrated that operatives of the anti-graft agency swooped on Badeh’s second house at 6 Ogun River Street, Maitama, Abuja and discovered a pack of kettle filled with 16 bundles of $50, 000 each, and another two sealed bundles of $100, 000 each making a total of $1 million in his bedroom upstairs.

The report quoted Mohammed as saying the investigating team further recovered a red box containing a knife which had an encrypted name and two way bills of furniture supplied to the building. 

The defence counsel Lasun Sanusi (SAN) objected to the EFCC’s attempt to tender the exhibit from the second search on the grounds that since Badeh was not present during the search, the recoveries are a nullity.

The presiding Justice Abang has adjourned the case to February 23 for hearing.