Nigeria is to question a former minister Tuesday about allegations of corruption, two days after he returned from self-exile in Britain, anti-graft police said.
Nasir el-Rufai, who was minister of Nigeria’s capital Abuja for four years until 2007, is suspected of misappropriating 32 billion naira (213 million dollars or 162 million euros) of public funds when he was in office.
“We have invited him to come and speak on the allegation we have against him,” a spokesman for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Femi Babafemi told AFP on Monday.
One of the allegations against el-Rufai, a close ally of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, was that he revoked land allocated to the country’s electricity supply agency, and gave it to family members.
El-Rufai has been quoted in the media as saying the charges against him are politically motivated.
His return to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and a leading oil producer, comes as political tensions increase ahead of next year’s presidential election.