Following the 2006 PTDF investigation, the Federal Government filed an 18-count charge before the Code of Conduct Tribunal against then Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and others under Charge No. CCT/NC/ABJ/06 dated 22 September 2006.
Atiku challenged the proceedings on the ground that, as a serving Vice-President, he enjoyed constitutional immunity under Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution. The Federal High Court upheld his objection, and on 5 April 2007 the Court of Appeal affirmed the decision, holding that proceedings before the Code of Conduct Tribunal were criminal in nature and could not be maintained against a serving Vice-President while his tenure subsisted.
The courts therefore did not determine Atiku’s guilt or innocence on the substance of the 18 counts; the prosecution was stopped because of the constitutional immunity he enjoyed at the time.
A subsequent Senate investigation into PTDF transactions found that the US$125 million and US$20 million approved in connection with PTDF projects had largely been placed in banks rather than immediately deployed to the identified projects. The Senate Ad-Hoc Committee further reported that loans totalling approximately N1.85 billion to NDTV, Mofas Shipping Company Limited and Transvari Services Limited remained unrecovered at the time of its investigation, although the EFCC had already recovered some funds from individuals connected with the transactions.
A later Senate Review Committee modified some of the earlier findings, concluding that the timing of PTDF deposits and subsequent bank loans was not, by itself, sufficient to establish that PTDF money funded those private loans.
The later Senate investigation found that the US$125 million was not used for the originally specified projects at the relevant time, although some PTDF projects subsequently commenced in 2006.
It also found that the ETB placements had been repaid to PTDF with accrued interest. However, substantial loans connected with the TIB transactions, reported as N1.13 billion to NDTV, N420 million to Mofas Shipping and N300 million to Transvari Services were still unrecovered at the time of the Senate inquiry.
