Landed property and business concerns worth over N2tr have been seized from 46 politicians and influential Nigerians in the final 7 days by the Economical and Financial Crimes Commission following corruption charges preferred against them, SUNDAY PUNCH investigations have revealed.
The forfeited properties totalling 203 and scattered across the area and abroad were healed on the orders of the courts.
This disclosure is forthcoming as the Economical and Financial Crimes Commission said it would in the following few weeks seal and appropriate more properties. The planned seizure is a consequence of court judgments yet to be implemented.
The EFCC Head, Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Babafemi, confirmed this to our correspondent on Friday, saying "there is another 16 on our list that we will be reclaiming in another two weeks."
He added, "The EFCC has the authorization to identify, verify and do all forfeited assets. In the form of the recognition and verification exercise, we discovered quite a lot of official orders that were not implemented during the incumbency of the late chairman."
The Mission was once under the supervision of Malam Nuhu Ribadu, who is now a presidential aspirant of the Action Congress of Nigeria.
Our correspondent gathered that an asset forfeiture unit was set up in 2008 to draw all the houses that the courts had arranged to be claimed by the administration in different parts of the country.
Babafemi said, "That unit became imperative when we realized that their previous owners were not quick to let go of the properties willingly. In all, we have 203 houses worth over N2tr from 46 court orders."
Already, tenants in the 203 houses have received letters from the EFCC that the buildings now go to the Union Government.
The letter, SUNDAY PUNCH gathered directed them to pay their rents to the Union Government Recovery account that is being managed by the Exchange Trust of Nigeria.
Also, property managers have been chartered to do the estates.
Babafemi said, "The managers will distribute the assets to generate revenue for the government. These properties no longer go to the individuals that owned them. They now go to the government and leave be treated as such."
Former Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, two weeks ago, joined the number of the 46 persons who had their properties confiscated after the commission seized two of his buildings in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Babafemi, said the mission had earlier confiscated the buildings and had court papers which gave it the exit to assume the properties.
Fayose, the EFCC spokesman said, had humiliated the commission`s seal on the buildings and regained entry into the buildings, an activity that prompted the anti-graft agency`s reaction.
Babafemi added, "The decree was not obtained today. It is an existing order. There was a subsisting court order for the temporary forfeiture of those buildings. The properties were seized since 2006 but they broke our seal and got into the building. We only got information on that which prompted our agents to motion in."
Apart from Fayose, the former Managing Director of Oceanic Bank International Plc, Mrs. Cecilia Ibru, also forfeited N191bn assets comprising 49 properties in Nigeria, United States and Dubai, United Arabian Emirates, to the FG, after a federal high court sentenced her to 18 months imprisonment last month.
In 2009, the EFCC also seized Cosmo FM radio station, Rainbownet Nigeria Ltd and other companies believed to be owned by former Enugu State governor, Senator Chimaroke Nnamani.
The properties were seized by the commission vide a Lagos Federal High Court put in May 2007 following the indictment of Nnamani over alleged corruption and misapplication of state funds to the tune of N5.3billion.
Suspected to be on the name also are properties of former Plateau State governor, Joshua Dariye; controversial businessmen, Fred Ajudua and Emmanuel Nwude; former Bayelsa governor, D.S.P Alamieyeseigha, and the old Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun.
Source: Punch News - punchontheweb.com
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