The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has confirmed the receipt of the refund of $760,000 paid as advanced school fees by Kogi State former governor, Yahaya Bello for his children at the American International School, Abuja.
Dele Oyewale, spokesperson for the EFCC, confirmed this in Abuja on Friday.
“The school has refunded the entire $760,000 to the EFCC’s recovery account,” Oyewale said.
The American International School had asked the EFCC to provide original banking details for the refund of fees paid for the children of the former governor.
Bello paid $720,000 in advance as fees for five of his children, in Grade Levels 2 to 8, from the coffers of the Kogi State Government.
In a letter addressed to the Lagos Zonal Commander of the EFCC, the school said the sum of $845,852 has been paid in tuition since the 7th of September 2021 to date.
The school stated that the sum to be refunded is $760,910 because it had deducted educational services already rendered.
The Chairman of the EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, had on Tuesday in Abuja, revealed that Bello transferred $720,000 from the government’s coffers to a bureau de change before leaving office to pay in advance for his child’s school fee.
“A sitting governor, because he knows he is going, moved money directly from government to bureau de change, used it to pay the child’s school fee in advance, $720,000 in advance, in anticipation that he was going to leave the Government House.
“In a poor state like Kogi, and you want me to close my eyes to that under the guise of ‘I’m being used.’ Being used by who at this stage of my life?”
