The ‘Panama Papers’ scandal is getting interesting by the day.
Latest VIP on the rogue list is Theophilus Danjuma, a retired army genera,l and former defence minister.
The stupendously wealthy Danjuma, is one of Nigeria’s richest personalities, courtesy of his ownership of one of Nigeria’s most lucrative oil blocs and a money spinning shipping firm.
The retired general is a long time user of offshore entities, and the Mossac Fonseca files has now exposed another of his companies – Eastcoast Investments Inc – which he incorporated in Nassau, in the Bahamas, on March 25, 1997.
At inception, Mr. Danjuma and a certain Colin Marcel Dixon were directors of the company.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the general formed the company to enable him to do business with Scancem International of Norway when the later decided to expand its involvement in Africa to include a project in Nigeria.
But the company soon became embroiled in a messy bribery scandal, with Scancem, according to court papers, later buying out Eastcoast Investment from the project on December 1, 2003.
It was later determined that “the money went mainly to another account, Eastcoast Investment had, to General T.Y. Danjuma and a certain The Volta Company”.
As the controversy raged, Mr. Danjuma resigned as director of the company, but we did not sight any document indicating that he transferred his shareholding to anyone.
A certain Satish Chander Dosaj, who later died, replaced him. On his death, Elizabeth Dixon, believed to be Mr. Dixon’s wife, was brought in as director.
But even before incorporating Eastcoast as a special purpose vehicle to do business with Scancem, Mr. Danjuma had used several offshore entities in the past, mostly registered in tax havens.
The database, Opencorporates, indicate that Mr. Danjuma served as director and vice-president of Cross Group Holdings International, which was registered in Panama on October 15, 1976.
Mr. Danjuma was still in service and was Chief of Army Staff at the time the company was incorporated. He was also director of Zara Logistics, a company registered in Cyprus on September 2, 1993.
It remains unclear what businesses Mr. Danjuma used the companies to transact.
The retired general was also among global personalities found to maintain secret accounts, operated with codes, with the Swiss branch of banking giant, HSBC.
He was linked to HSBC account 15731CD, which was opened in 1993 and closed in 2001.