Tag Archives: PROPERTIES

N1tn Abuja Land Scam: EFCC Seizes 12 Properties From Bala Mohammed, Son

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has seized at least 12 properties from a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, and his son, Shamsudeen Bala.

It was learnt on Tuesday that the seizures were part of investigations into a controversial land swap deal carried out by the minister to the tune of N1tn between 2010 and 2015.

“So far, we have seized about 12 properties from Bala Mohammed and his son, who he used in buying many properties. However, this is just a tip of the iceberg because we found out that there are still a lot of properties to be recovered’’, a source in the EFCC said on Tuesday.

“After investigations, we will arraign Bala (ex-minister) before an FCT High Court while his son will be arraigned before a Federal High Court anytime from now, the source added.”

Mohammed, who has been in EFCC custody for over six weeks, is alleged to have entered into some controversial land deals and allegedly gave some landed properties to his cronies for the construction of malls.

The source said, “We have evidence that the ex-minister diverted funds from Internally Generated Revenue. He also gave land arbitrarily to friends without following due process. Some of the land had even been allocated to other people but seized from them unjustly.”

Already, the commission has grilled a former Chairman of Skye Bank, Tunde Ayeni, who was also the Chairman of ASO Savings & Loans Plc over the purchase of the N7.5bn ASO Grove Estate at the Maitama area of Abuja by the bank through the ex-minister.

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Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia Fail To Show Properties She Claimed Her Mother Gave Her

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Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia took agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a wild goose chase as she traveled with them from Lagos to Benin and Asaba in search of properties she claimed her late mother bequeathed to her. However, the search was futile as the judge was unable to show agents the said properties she allegedly inherited from her mother.

 

An EFCC source told SaharaReporters that a bus carrying Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia and a team of anti-corruption agents first arrived in Benin City, the capital of Edo State, because the judge had claimed that some of the $900k she wired abroad from bank accounts in Nigeria was income from properties she ostensibly inherited. She had told EFCC agents that her brother, Donald Ofili, and a lawyer based in Asaba, the Delta State capital, were managing the said properties. However, agents who traveled to Benin City to verify the existence of the houses claimed by the embattled judge as the source of some of her income did not find a single property.

Our source said that the judge, who sat in the back of the bus, often covered herself with a wrapper and muttered into a hand-held device as they drove her to Benin City. According to the source, EFCC agents let the judge be, but occasionally asked her to let them talk to her brother, Mr. Donald Ofili. However, on their arrival in Benin, the judge’s brother reportedly spoke on the phone to EFCC agents, asserting that their mother owned homes in the city, but confessing that his sister had asked him to claim that the $120k he wired into her account came from rental fees.

 

The operatives said that, on discovering that her brother had blown open her game, Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia changed tunes and claimed that a lawyer not known to her brother managed the properties. She also told stunned agents that she could not recollect the addresses of the properties. When agents reminded her that her brother also claimed not to know the addresses of the properties, the judge urged the agents to proceed to Asaba, claiming she would then have enough time to contact the mysterious Benin lawyer.

Upset by the judge’s evasive manner, EFCC agents demanded to speak with the lawyer in advance as they drove to Asaba. Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia reportedly rang the so-called lawyer and handed her phone over to an EFCC agent. The man then promised the EFCC agents that he would be waiting to receive them in Asaba, adding that he was visiting a community outside Asaba.

 

However, once the EFCC agents arrived in Asaba, the judge told them that the lawyer who reportedly managed her properties had traveled to Owerri. Furious, members of the EFCC team demanded to speak again with the lawyer, but his line had been switched off. They demanded that the judge take them to the properties, but she again said she did not know the address. The irate EFCC operatives spent the night in Asaba, but seized the judge’s phone to ensure she would not use it to plot against them. As they disembarked from the bus, the agents discovered that the judge had another phone hidden in her wrapper, which they also took away.

Our source said that, despite taking away the second phone, they discovered the judge continued to mutter under her wrapper during the journey back to Lagos. Once in Lagos, a female EFCC detective searched the judge and discovered that she had hidden up to five phones underneath her clothing. She had also concealed an iPad.

According to our EFCC source, an initial check of the phones showed that the embattled justice was using different phones to communicate with her suspected accomplices perhaps tutoring them to lie to investigators about the source of her inexplicable cash transactions. The source said the phones retrieved from the judge would also be sent to experts for forensic checks.

A senior EFCC source confirmed the drama with Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia, adding that the agency was considering revoking the judge’s administrative bail, accusing her of making moves to undermine their investigative tasks.

Lagos To Seize Properties Used By Kidnappers

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The Lagos State Government yesterday warned that it will not hesitate to confiscate houses and hotels used as hideouts for kidnapping and other criminal activities.

Commissioner of Police Mr. Fatai Owoseni, who read the riot act while briefing reporters after the State Security Council meeting presided over by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, said the government was poised to eradicate the menace of kidnapping and militancy.

He said: “The take away for today after the Security Council Meeting is for us to look at all the strategies that we have been employing in tackling the security challenges that we had in the state and to further strategise with the view to sustaining those measures that would put all the criminal elements in check.

“The Security Council has come out to let our people know emphatically that the state is more poised at tackling all the criminal challenges and making sure that all the criminal elements that are going about will not be allowed any free reign; they will not be given freedom of space to practice any of their criminal acts.

“There is no hiding place for criminal elements again and as we get them, they would be made to face the full wrath of the law.

“In addition to that, the Council resolved that any structure or any places of hiding that criminal elements are using, the state will not hesitate, in the interest of the public, to take over those safe havens, structures or houses,” he said.

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Lagos to seize properties used by kidnappers

Group Asks EFCC To Investigate Buratai Over Alleged ?Purchase Of Properties In Dubai

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An anti-graft coalition, the Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CSNAC), has urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, over alleged diversion of funds to purchase properties in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In a petition forwarded to the anti-graft commission and signed by the group’s chairman, Olanrewaju Suraju, the group said such act was a violation of the law of public service.

According to the group, ?if the revelation is found to be true, based on evidence adduced by a newspaper, then the actions of the COAS is a great disservice, an act of sabotage against the Nigerian State and a violation of the law prohibiting public officer from investing or participating in any other business safe for farming.

Taking a cue from a publication of June 24, 2016, by Sahara Reporters, an online newspaper, the group said the newspaper revealed how the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Buratai and his two wives were alleged joint owners of a Dubai Property that was paid for in one transaction.

“The funds for the said properties were alleged to have come from a vehicle contract scam, executed while Mr. Buratai was the Director of Procurement at the Army Headquarters. “Our correspondents discovered that the Nigerian Army had awarded an apparently bogus contract for the supply of vehicles and motorcycles for the use of troops involved in an anti-terrorism offensive in Nigeria’s beleaguered northeastern zone”.

According to the publication, “The allegation that General Buratai might have pilfered funds meant for the purchase of military vehicles has sparked outrage among soldiers and officers, especially those from the northeastern part of the country. Two military sources disclosed that irate officers had petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari, urging him to order an investigation into the contract scam”.

“In the petition, exclusively obtained by SaharaReporters, the aggrieved soldiers and officers, under the umbrella of Concerned Soldiers and Officers from the North East, had accused the COAS of executing the contract through a proxy. According to the petitioners, the proxy’s name is Usman Gamawa, founder of Baggash Investment Limited. The petition stated that, rather than supply new vehicles, as contained the contract awarded, Mr. Baggash allegedly purchased second-hand vehicles and motorcycles from Niger Republic.

“On arrival in Nigeria, the vehicles were said to have been refurbished at Mogadishu Cantonment under the supervision of Staff Sergeant Dadan Garba. SaharaReporters said some of the vehicles and motorcycles had since broken down.”

Credit: PremiumTimes

MDAs To Benefit From Properties Seized From Looters

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The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun said the Federal Government plans to relocate some of its Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDA) into some recovered looted properties.

Adeosun said this on Friday in Abuja while briefing newsmen after the Steering Committee of the Efficiency Unit meeting.

The Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers had been advocating for adequate utilisation of confiscated properties.

Adeosun said that the move to relocate the agencies was to reduce waste since these properties were empty and thereby save government from paying rent.

The issuance of price guidelines and initiatives for reducing expenditure on rent on office and residential buildings will be the primary focus areas of the efficiency unit in coming months.

You may want to know that the average annual expenditure on rent for a three year period of 2012 to 2014 was N3.55 billion.

And to achieve that, we are already looking at using properties that were forfeited from recoveries and moving some of our agencies to occupy those properties rather than paying rent,’’ she said.

Adeosun said that the Efficiency unit had already recorded success in cutting government overhead cost in areas such as travels, welfare, honorarium, sitting allowance, training, adverts and publicity as well as refreshments.

Major savings are expected when on-going engagement with the Bureau of Public Procurement on the pooling of MDAs demands for standard products such as vehicles, computers, diesel and others.

We plan to secure large discounts from suppliers and the issuance of Price Guidelines are developed and implemented.

Price Guidelines will ensure uniformity in the price at which MDAs purchase items, as well as transparency and value for money in the procurement process.’’

Adeosun said she was working with the states to ensure that they all established Efficiency Unit since 47.32 per cent of revenue that accrued to the federation goes to the states and local governments.

She enjoined relevant stakeholders to collaborate with the unit to ensure it achievd its mandate of cutting cost and improving the efficiency of government.

Credit: Guardian

Young Couple Lose Their Entire Property To Van Man

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Becky Szenk, 22, and Mark Higgins, pictured with daughter Ariyah above, had booked a removal worker advertised as Lee Green to move their possessions from their flat to the pub in Walsall, West Midlands, that Mr Higgins manages. But after the two workers loaded up the rental van, they drove off with the entire contents of the couple’s flat – including the fridge freezer and washing machine gifts – and were never seen again. The missing items include a wardrobe, a settee, the couple’s engagement gifts and clothing and medical records for Miss Szenk’s seven-month-old daughter.

The Facebook page advertising the removal service has since been taken down after they made complained to Facebook administration. The West Midlands Police are also investigating the alleged theft. As usual, a Gofundme page has now been set up to raise money for the family which has so far collected £880 worth of donations.