The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has charged one Abubakar Sani Chindo to a Kaduna State High Court sitting in Kaduna, Kaduna State, for allegedly providing false and misleading information to the Commission that former Namadi Sambo, Vice President, stashed huge sums of money in his house.

In a two-count charge filed before Justice M. T. Aliyu, ICPC accused Chindo of misleading the Commission as a whistle-blower, an action that contravenes Sections 64 (3) and 25 (a,b) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000 and punishable under the same sections.

The information provided by the whistle-blower had led to the unwarranted raid of Sambo’s residence, located at Alimi Road, Kaduna.

The accused, who appeared in court without a defence counsel, pleaded not guilty to the charge when read to him.

Although he prayed Justice Aliyu to grant him bail, the trial judge refused his bail application, noting that the accused needed a lawyer to perfect his bail conditions.

The judge therefore remanded him in prison custody to perfect the conditions.

If convicted, Chindo faces a prison term of 10 years or a fine not exceeding N100,000 as provided by Section 64 (3) of the Act.

Back in June, the ICIR had exclusively reported how a source very close to one of the operatives who executed the search warrant on Sambo’s home confirmed that the search team had been misled by a whistle-blower.

The source, an operative of Nigeria’s highly secretive security agency, said that they had gotten intelligence of illegal activities bothering on financial crimes in the former Vice President’s house and had obtained a search warrant before proceeding to his home in Kaduna.

“In the end, it turned out a false alarm because several hours of search yielded nothing,” he said. “You already know that if we found something, it would have been in the media by now. We found nothing incriminating in the ex-VP’s house.”