Assets Declaration Documents Detail Bukola
Saraki’s Theft And Looting
The latest documents offer a glimpse into his life
of unexplained luxury and asset accumulation.
The asset declaration forms also offer a glimpse
into Mr. Saraki’s clever maneuvers to conceal his
stolen wealth by passing off some assets to his
wife, Toyin Saraki, and their two children, Semi
Saraki and Teniola Saraki.
BY SAHARA REPORTERS, NEW YORK
SEP 17, 2015
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S aharaReporters has exclusively obtained
documents revealing Senate President Bukola
Saraki’s asset declaration in 2003. The
documents come hours after SaharaReporters
reported that the Code of Conduct Tribunal
formally charged the embattled Senate President
with 13 counts of financial crime, money
laundering, and unexplained assets. Mr. Saraki’s
trial is expected to commence tomorrow,
September 18, 2015, as he has been officially
served today with the charges.
Senators Andy Uba, Bukola Saraki and Dino
Melaye are attending an IPU conference in New
York
SaharaReporters has published a series of
investigative reports detailing Senator Saraki and
his wife, Toyin Saraki’s, career of plundering
Societe Generale Bank, where he was an
executive director and in which the senator’s
family had controlling shares, as well as the
finances of Kwara State during his eight-year
tenure as governor.
An investigation by the Special Fraud Unit of the
Nigerian Police Force revealed that Mr. Saraki not
only went on a massive stealing spree that
contributed to the collapse of Societe General
Bank, but that he also masterminded a series of
fraudulent schemes by taking out loans and
bribing bank officials not to collect on those
loans. Altogether, Bukola Saraki has accumulated
millions of dollars in unexplained expenses and
assets.
The latest documents offer a glimpse into his life
of unexplained luxury and asset accumulation.
The asset declaration forms also offer a glimpse
into Mr. Saraki’s clever maneuvers to conceal his
stolen wealth by passing off some assets to his
wife, Toyin Saraki, and their two children, Semi
Saraki and Teniola Saraki.
It is remarkable that Mr. Saraki’s 2003
Declaration of Assets Forms were filed on May 12,
2003, seventeen days before he was sworn into
office as Governor of Kwara State. Therefore, the
assets he declared in the forms reflected the
wealth Mr. Saraki had accumulated before he
began an extensive plundering of Kwara State
funds.
Mr. Saraki’s 2003 asset declaration documents
reveal his astonishing wealth with no explanation
for how he obtained it. He and his companies had
more than N51.5 million in Nigeria when he
submitted these forms to the Code of Conduct
Bureau in 2003. Mr. Saraki also had cash assets,
under his name or those of his companies, of at
least 2.9 million pounds sterling and $400,000
dollars in 2003.
Saraki Bank Accounts Outside Nigeria
Photo Credit:
Sahara Reporters Media
In addition to his cash assets, Mr. Saraki was
also the registered owner of at least eight
properties in Nigeria, calculated in 2003 to be
worth more than N2.2 trillion. Mr. Saraki was also
the registered owner of eight properties in London,
which he purchased roughly during the same
time. By 2003, according to Mr. Saraki’s assets
declaration forms, he owned properties in the UK
worth more than $12.6 million.
Saraki properties in Nigeria
Photo Credit:
Sahara Reporters Media
Saraki properties in London, UK
Photo Credit:
Sahara Reporters Media
Before becoming a State governor, Mr. Saraki also
purchased 15 vehicles. The automobiles consisted
of a Ferrari, 10 Mercedes Benzes, and four
bulletproof cars valued at more than N263.4
million. All the vehicles were purchased between
1997 and 2002, with most of them acquired
through “business” transactions.
Saraki's vehicles
Photo Credit:
Sahara Reporters Media
The assets declaration forms also reveal that Mr.
Saraki and his companies had stockholdings
worth 2,145,550 naira, 2,600,00 Euros, and
6,108,33 US dollars.
The documents also reveal that Mr. Saraki’s wife,
Toyin, and their two children, owned assets that
were inexplicable and highly suspicious. The
forms showed that the assets held by Mrs. Saraki
and the senator’s two children included cash,
property, and stock holdings valued at more than
N8 million, 4.5 million pounds sterling, and $4.6
million.
The total wealth, of cash and other assets, that
Bukola Saraki decided to declare on his assets
declaration forms was 2.607 billion naira
(2,607,110,550 naira), 23.7 million US dollars
(23,783,333), 7.4 million Pounds Sterling
(7,406,500 Pounds Sterling), and 2.6 million Euros
(2,600,000 Euros).
Saraki company assets
Photo Credit:
Sahara Reporters Media
The grand total of Bukola Saraki’s wealth, as of
2003, is 10.2 billion naira (10,209,270,295 naira).
However, as SaharaReporters and Nigerian police
investigations have shown, this is only a small
glimpse of Bukola Saraki’s total wealth.
SaharaReporters has previously released
documents detailing a police investigation of
Bukola Saraki, authored by the Chief
Superintendent of Police for Anti-Money
Laundering, which offered another glimpse into
Saraki’s criminal and unexplained financial
activity. This investigation revealed that Bukola
Saraki conservatively deposited more than 2
billion naira into accounts belonging to him, in
addition to his dollar accounts.
The investigation found that between May 2009
and May 2011 Bukola Saraki deposited at least
4.5 million dollars (4,560,871 US dollars) into his
dollar accounts. It was also found in the
investigation that more than 5 million dollars
made its way into Bukola Saraki’s Zenith Bank
account during his time as Governor of Kwara
State.
Altogether, from this very conservative estimate of
unexplained wealth, Bukola Saraki has more than
14.1 billion naira (14,111,405,580 naira)
according to declaration forms and police
investigations of him.
Bukola Saraki’s latest statement on this matter
simply states that it is all an “outright fabrication
and mischief,” while also noting that he continues
to fight corruption.

More to come

I tell you