The former governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, has died in London after a long illness at 70.
Family sources said he had been suffering from severe heart failure and complications from urinary cancer.
A family member, who wished to remain unnamed, said: “His health had been declining for months, but his final collapse was sudden. The family is devastated.”
Hospital sources confirmed that Obiano was admitted to intensive care shortly before his condition worsened. “He fought until the end,” a medical staff member said.
Obiano’s death occurs at a sensitive time, as he was due to appear in court in Nigeria on November 25.
A Federal High Court in Abuja, had set the trial date in July for a nine-count charge of alleged N4 billion money laundering filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Read akso:
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The case was reassigned to Justice Mohammed Umar earlier this year.
During the October 2024 hearing, EFCC’s lead counsel, Sylvanus Tahir, SAN, called Ugochukwu Otubelu, a former bank employee, as the third prosecution witness.
Otubelu, who worked at the bank from 2008 to 2023, testified that he oversaw transactions connected to the security vote account of the administration.
He testified that the account’s signatories were Obiano’s principal secretary, Willy Nwokoye, and accountant Theophilus Nweze, with whom he regularly interacted to carry out daily and weekly financial operations.
