NIRSAL Boss, Masanawa In DSS Custody Over ‘Organised Crime’ – Sources

Competent Security and Presidency Sources have confirmed to this paper the arrest and detention of Abbas Masanawa, Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria’s Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL).

THE WHISTLER gathered that the NIRSAL boss, alleged to have been sacked, is currently in the custody of the State Security Service over the ongoing investigation of an organised crime.

“Investigation of this nature is very organised and the crime being investigated is also organised,” a top security source disclosed to this newspaper.

While the circumstances trailing his detention are still sketchy as of press time, THE WHISTLER can report that Masanawa was previously arrested, released, and recently rearrested by the DSS.

A Presidency Source with knowledge of the investigation told THE WHISTLER that such cases as Masanawa’s required “many people and so many platforms to commit this sort of crime” and the DSS got the necessary court order validating his detention.

His arrest comes barely three weeks after President Bola Tinubu appointed an anti-graft expert, Jim Obazee, to investigate alleged fraud at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and other federal agencies.

There is also a reported ongoing inquiry into his role as a Managerial Director of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC).

NSPMC also known as MINT is a subset of the CBN, responsible for printing and minting Nigeria’s currency notes, coins and high-level security documents including electoral materials for the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Masanawa was a Managing Director at the NSPMC until May 2022 when he resigned from his position to pursue his governorship ambition in Katsina State under the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the 2023 elections.