The American International School of Abuja has refunded $760,910.84 of $845,852 allegedly deposited to the school to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
According to The Nation, the school refunded $760,910.84 to EFCC in respect of the deposited school fees for five of the former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello.
EFCC earlier prosecuted Yahaya Bello for allegedly defrauding the state of the sum of N80.2 billion to pay his children’s school fees, which Yahaya vehemently denied, and vowed that he would not succumb to any blackmail to “come through the backdoor.”
The $845,852 was allegedly paid to the school by Bello in August 2021 to cover the education of four of his children in the school and another one “to be enrolled in August 2022 if the application is successful and there is space available.”
The fees were to cover a period of 14 years (2021–2035), according to documents filed in court by the EFCC to support its case against the ex-governor.
“The American school refunded the school fees in two tranches. Initially, it returned $720,000 to the EFCC and later $40,910,” a top source in EFCC told The Nation.
Continuing, the source said: “Following a mutual agreement with the EFCC, the school decided to retain some fees (I think $84,942) for its services.
“This is one of the aspects of our investigation which made us ask Bello to come for interaction. But it is already part of our documents frontloaded to the Federal High Court in Abuja.
When contacted for an official reaction, the Head of Media and Publicity of EFCC, Mr. Dele Oyewale, said: “The school has refunded $760,910 to this commission.