Olawale Olaleye in Lagos, Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt and Ogheneuvwede Ohwovoriole in Abuja
With the controversy trailing the
recovered N15 billion from a flat in Ikoyi, Lagos last week, pressure is
now mounting on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),
which carried out the raid, to speak out on the recovered funds.
Though, the National Intelligence Agency
(NIA) had said that it owned the money, which it claimed was for its
covert operations, while responding to THISDAY enquiries off the record,
the EFCC, which carried out the raid and announced the recovery, has
kept mum since controversy began to trail the ownership of the money.
EFCC had on Thursday stormed a luxury
apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos, where it discovered cash in three currencies
stashed in fire-proof safes. During the raid on one of the flats on the
7th floor of Osborne Towers in Ikoyi, a total of N13 billion, made up
of $43.4million, N23million and £27,000, was found.
Although the EFCC did not give details
of the operation, four names were immediately touted as alleged owners
of the money. Those allegedly linked to the flat and cash include former
chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party and owner of the Osborne
Towers, Alhaji Adamu Muazu; Mrs. Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, who was recently
relieved of her appointment as Managing Director of NNPC (Retail); and
an alleged daughter of Chief Tony Anenih, a former chairman of the Board
of Trustees of the PDP. They have all refuted the allegations.
A curious dimension was also added to
the controversy with the claim by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom
Wike, that the recovered money was allegedly stolen from the state
coffers by his immediate predecessor and current Minister of Transport,
Hon. Rotimi Amaechi. He consequently released a white paper which
indicted the former governor of corruption. Amaechi has refuted the
allegation.
While effort by THISDAY to reach EFCC
yesterday on the issue was unsuccessful, a majority of prominent
Nigerians, who spoke exclusively to THISDAY insisted that to put the
controversy surrounding the money to rest, the EFCC must speak on the
intelligence that led the agency to the building, the result of its
investigation and the ownership of the money.
Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo,
who claimed the development was a reflection of the rot in the President
Muhammadu Buhari government, insisted it was a problem created by the
government itself, asking: “Are these not agencies of government? Don’t
they have defined responsibilities and roles? Why are they interloping
each other?”
According to him, “Government set up
commissions by law to fight corruption and they are fighting each other,
is that not corruption? What is happening now shows the rottenness in
the government.
“Those who rejected the DSS report on
Magu, what have they to say? Is that not the body empowered to
investigate any public officer and this agency sent a report to the
Senate that Magu was not credible to lead EFCC and you declined their
report and yet, you still keep them. The moment you have lost confidence
in them, you sack them since you no longer believe in them?
“That’s the responsibility of a
responsible government. The moment you are no longer confortable with an
agency or its recommendations, you sack them. In fact, this is the
first time in the history of government in this country that the DSS
recommendation was turned down and when you don’t believe in it anymore,
you sack them. You can’t continue to keep the DSS there because you
have shown that you are not comfortable with them. If a permanent
secretary doesn’t perform, what do you do? You sack!” he said.
Former Ogun State governor, Chief
Olusegun Osoba was palpably irritated when he said, “The whole thing is a
total disgrace of the highest order and there’s a total display of
sordid incompetence. A whistleblower should have told them the owner of
what he’s blowing the whistle on. EFCC too should have taken the trouble
to monitor the place and catch whoever owns it red-handed. I say it is a
disgrace because a body claims to have recovered a huge sum of money
and within three hours, they touted four names as the owners.
“It was first Muazu. Muazu denied and
said he was not the owner and in any case, Muazu is not in the country.
They now went on to Esther, and Esther denied. Then, they went to
Anenih’s daughter and that one too denied. Then, then said it was
Amaechi and Wike now came out of the blues to say it is Rivers’ money. I
cannot believe that a serious body would run itself into such a
situation, where its credibility is being questioned. I am really not
impressed at all.
“EFCC has made the mistake of confirming
that the internet bloggers are their agents because all these names
were being touted, not by major newspapers but internet bloggers, who
are not themselves in any way professional. EFCC has to go and search
itself, clear its name and stop this trial by the media.
“I say this because of the recent
happenings. For instance, up till now, we don’t know the owner of the
N49 million found in Kaduna. Did the money fall from heaven like manna?
You went to a market and you said you found N250 million and so what?
Are we not a cash society? Do we politicians not throw money around and
pay cash to our agents during campaigns? Does that turn us into money
launderers? During elections we pay our agents cash. We don’t send money
to them by bank transfer or cheques. Nigeria is still largely a cash
society. It is not a big deal at all. There’s no law that says it’s a
crime to keep cash in your house.
“To compound it all, two major agencies
of government – NIA and EFCC – started to wash their linen in the
public, giving the impression of lack of cooperation. NIA now lays claim
to the money and we are yet to have the reaction of EFCC. It is a
disgrace to our country that two sister agencies are now working against
each other with inadequate cooperation. I feel ashamed as a journalist
that the information coming from our agencies is through the bloggers.”
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Dr.
Eyimofe Atake, was not less disappointed, saying “In truth, by now EFCC
must know who has the money and it is easy to find out who owns the flat
or rented it. If you don’t know who owns the flat, you will know who
rented it; if you don’t know who rented it, you will know who owns it.
“Either way, I am convinced that by now,
the EFCC knows who owns the flat or who rented it at the very least.
Why they are keeping mute is the most shocking part of this matter.
“My view, therefore, is that by now, the
EFCC knows who owns the flat or rented it. But it is baffling that they
are silent and nothing is being done about it. One thing is also clear:
keeping such money in the house also shows that the money is illegal.”
The scribe of Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba
socio-cultural group, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, also described the development
as “The greatest embarrassment for the anti-graft war in Nigeria. That
the EFCC will rush to the public and make a scene about its discovery,
in any case, that’s even the first tragedy. Initially, EFCC told us that
$38 million was found. But immediately there was a claim that the money
belongs to NIA and they went to court, the money became $43 million
dollars.
“So, what was going to happen to the $5
million differential if the NIA had not allegedly claimed the money? And
I think this speaks to the integrity issue which the DSS raised in its
letter to the Senate. If a whole $5million suddenly surfaced after NIA
claimed the money, that’s the first test of EFCC’s integrity. The second
thing is that if you go to Alausa today, as a lawyer, to verify the
title of that property, in a day, you can do that, to know the title of
the house, who owns it and if it has been transferred to another person.
“So, if a whole EFCC cannot confirm the
title or the identity of the owner of that property, then, there is
problem. Now, we have this forth and back: oh, the money is owned by
NIA; NIA said the money is…and up till now we’ve not heard from NIA –
NIA has not made any statement, which raises a lot of concern and I
think how EFCC handles this will determine whether Nigerians will
continue to take it seriously.
“This is because, as a whistleblower,
the first thing is who owns this money. You should be interested. In
fact, we will be interested in seeing the owner of this money paraded
than the cash being paraded. I don’t know of any serious country in the
world, where there is sanity; where there is decency, where they have
not lost their values and they would display money like that in front of
children and in front of hungry people on a daily basis.
“I think the EFCC integrity is seriously
being challenged here just like the DSS wrote to the Senate that there
is integrity issue in EFCC, so the integrity of EFCC is being challenged
over this recovered fund,” he said.
Meanwhile, Wike has not relented in his
push to recover what he called Rivers money, accusing the federal
government of a desperate attempt to cover up corruption in its handling
of the money recovered by the EFCC at Osborne Towers because its
“principal financial sponsor” (Amaechi) was involved.
But Amaechi has described Wike’s allegations as frivolous, malicious and diversionary.
In the same breath, the All Progressives
Congress (APC) in the state has also said Wike was using his
allegations to divert attention from the accusation by embattled
National Chairman of the PDP, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, that the
governor spent $6 million to bribe Supreme Court judges on the tussle
for the national chairmanship of the PDP.
Briefing Rivers Christian Leaders on the
development at the Government House, Port Harcourt, yesterday, Wike
stated that the Rivers State Government was not interested in the
prosecution of Amaechi but simply seeking the return of funds belonging
to the state.
He said once the federal government
returns the money to the Rivers government, it would deploy it to the
completion of Amaechi’s abandoned pet project, the monorail.
Wike said the promotion of insults and
needless propaganda would not detract the State Government from
recovering her “stolen resources” and declared that the state was ready
for a lengthy battle with the federal government over the money.
“The federal government wants us to
believe that a security agency will keep a whopping N16 billion in a
private residence in cash. They think that Nigerians don’t have brains.
When millions of dollars were found in Kaduna, the EFCC was quick to
announce the owner of that money. Now they don’t know the whistleblower
in the case of the Ikoyi billions and they are afraid to disclose the
owner of the money.”
But Amaechi in a statement described the
claims as malicious, frivolous and another failed attempt by Wike to
divert attention from the mess he has created in Rivers State.
“This latest outburst by Wike is typical
of him. We are aware that Wike first tried to float the fake news of
Amaechi’s ownership of the recovered $43 million and the Ikoyi house in
the social media using his minions and lackeys, spending huge sums of
Rivers money on the failed project…
“For clarity and emphasis, Chibuike
Rotimi Amaechi is not the owner of the $43million and the Ikoyi
apartment in which the money was recovered from…”
He however challenged Wike to go to
court if he has any shred of evidence that the money belongs to Rivers
State and was kept in the Ikoyi apartment.
In the same vein, the Director-General
of Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr.
Dakuku Peterside, has questioned the sanity of the Rivers governor for
making the wild allegation.
“Not too long ago, Wike apparently
suffering from overdose of self-delusion said he had awarded road
projects in faraway Benue State and had mobilised contractors to site.
The same Wike has also accused the Inspector General of Police of
plotting to assassinate him through the new CP in Rivers State.
“We thought these were jokes taken too
far. But the clownish governor has surprised himself with another tales
by moonlight in trying to link his former boss and benefactor to the
unclaimed money. I think we need to check the sanity and mental status
of Governor Wike. Time and time again, he is bringing ridicule to the
office he occupies and embarrassing the people of Rivers State, who are
known to be intelligent, responsible and decent in upbringing.”
The Conference of Nigeria Political
Parties (CNPP) has equally accused the federal government of plotting to
shield the real owner of the sums recovered by the EFCC to prove to
Nigerians that its activity was not lopsided by naming and prosecuting
its true owner.
The umbrella organisation of all
political parties and association in the country dismissed the claims
that the money belongs to NIA
In a statement signed by its Secretary
General, Chief Willy Ezugwu, CNPP maintained that if it was found that
the money and the apartment truly belonged to Amaechi, the cash should
be returned to the River State treasury.
THISDAY 17/04/2017
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