THE Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has arrested an accountant of the Oando filling station at Dutse Alhaji, Abuja, over alleged racketeering of the new naira notes.
The arrest followed the continued onslaught by the Commission on some elements who have been taking advantage of the scarcity of the new naira notes to defraud unsuspecting Nigerians.
This was disclosed in a statement issued on Friday and signed by the ICPC spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua.
The ICPC said its Monitoring Team had received a tip-off that the said filling station deliberately disconnected its point-of-sale (PoS) services so that motorists could not have access to buy petrol, using their automated teller machine (ATM) cards.
“Upon reaching the petrol station, the Team found out that motorists were forced to pay for the product in cash, and those without the new notes were directed to a PoS operator directly opposite the filling station to access the cash.
“ICPC operatives found out that the PoS did not only belong to the accountant of the filling station, but it was charging a very high exorbitant rate as commission against the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),” the agency stated.
The Commission said it discovered the sum of N1 million with the PoS operator, which the Team directed should be paid into a bank account.
The accountant was arrested alongside the PoS operator, but the Commission had granted both of them administrative bail.
The ICPC had arrested a woman, Omoseyin Oluwadarasimi Esther, with the Twitter handle @SimisolaGold, earlier this month for allegedly offering new naira notes for sale on social media.
According to the ICPC, intelligence reports prompted its operatives to seek and arrest the suspect on Wednesday, February 1.
A reporter with the ICIR
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