Publish Assets Recovered from Looters, Fayose Tells EFCC

Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti

Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has told the federal government to publish all the properties it claimed to have recovered and their owners as well as buyers of the properties when they are eventually sold.

The governor, who said Nigerians were no longer interested in being governed with propaganda, said: “Nigerians want to know how many properties were recovered and who bought the properties. Who authorised the sale? Nigerians want details, not propaganda because most of these properties have been sold and resold.”

A statement yesterday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Lere Olayinka, Fayose said: “The federal government should create a website where all the properties recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and to whom they were sold will be listed so that by one click, Nigerians will have information.”

The governor said it would be difficult to trust the EFCC reports on recovered looted funds and properties, asking; “How can Nigerians continue to trust the position of the same EFCC that said in April
2016 that the allegation of corruption against Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Chairman, Danladi Umar, was mere suspicion and would be difficult to proof in court, but now charged that the same CCT chairman to court on the allegation it described as mere suspicion?

He said: “On November 23, 2017, Senator Emmanuel Paulker, the Chairman of the Senate committee investigating the botched reinstatement and promotion of the former Chairman the Presidential Task Force on
Pensions, under the leadership of Ibrahim Maina, told Nigerians on the floor of the Senate that almost all the exotic properties recovered from alleged looters of pension funds had already been re-looted by officials of the EFCC.

“Last year November also, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), while testifying before the National Assembly alleged that one of the properties recovered from alleged looters of pension funds was already sold to a Lagos lawyer.
“How are we now sure that the same people who re-looted the recovered pension loots have not also looted the recovered properties the resident said will be sold?’

Speaking further, Governor Fayose said: “The federal government cannot continue to tell Nigerians stories without background. The era of ‘baba has said’ is gone in Nigeria. The era of the president acting like a lord of manor is gone, we are in a democracy. Many people were blackmailed and coerced to surrender their properties. A typical case is the one on Malabu Oil where people have been scandalised, harassed and their names destroyed via media trial and the AGF now come out to say that there is no enough evidence to try them. What will now happen to the lies told against those people?

“The federal government should therefore publish and state clearly what has happened in the EFCC between 2006 and now. Nigerians need to know the recovered properties sold by Ibrahim Magu’s predecessor, Ibrahim Lamorde, and other previous EFCC chairmen. Those who bought them should be made public too.”