NIGERIA is N381m (£1.31m) richer today after the wife of the former chief of naval staff Omolara Amosu refunded the money to the treasury following investigations into her husband's finances by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Air Marshal Adesola Amosu has been under investigation over his role in the $2.1bn Dasukigate scandal in which money meant to procure military hardware was diverted to other purposes. He is being interrogated in connection with 10 contracts awarded by the Nigeria Air Force between 2014 and 2015, totalling $930.5m and he and several others have been asked to refund the cash traced to them.

 It appears that as part as a plea bargaining deal, Mrs Amosu has agreed to refund the money in three tranches of N180m, N101m and N100m. According to the EFCC, the cash was traced to a bank account belonging to the former Nigeria Air Force chief through a company of which his wife is a director.

 “We recovered N381m from Amosu’s wife, Omolara. Initially, we recovered N180m from her account before another N101m and then N100m.

 "These were monies transferred from Nigeria Air Force accounts. Air Force officers sent the money to an account where their wives have interests or are signatories without doing anything,” an EFCC source added.

 A second EFCC source added that more properties belonging to the immediate past chief of accounts and budgeting of the Nigerian Air Force, Air Vice Marshal JB Adigun had been seized. He said a property, which is a quarry located in Ogun State, had equipment worth about $600,000.

 Two weeks ago, houses worth over N2bn in Ikoyi and Victoria Island belonging to Air Vice Marshal Adigun were seized. Marshals Amosu, Adigun and over nine air force officers are currently under investigation by the anti-graft agency for the procurement of equipment which was said not to be transparent.

 Marshal Amosu is being quizzed over the procurement of two second-hand Mi-24V helicopters, which were bought instead of the recommended Mi-35M series at a cost of $136.9m. Both helicopters were not operationally airworthy at the time of delivery while a brand new unit of such helicopters costs about $30m.

 One EFCC detective said: “Amosu will be charged to court anytime from now. Recall that we obtained a holding charge from a court to hold him for a maximum of 30 days, so we are rounding off our investigations and anytime from now, he will be charged to court.”

 On February 11, the EFCC had seized houses and other properties belonging to Air Marshal Amosu and other senior military officers worth N5bn. These properties were located in Ikoyi, Ikeja and the Badagry areas of Lagos State, as well as in Abuja.