Publish property list, owners before selling, Fayose tells FG

Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has told the Federal Government to publish the list of property it claimed have been recovered by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and their owners as well as buyers when they are eventually sold.

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

According to a statement yesterday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said “the Federal Government should create a website where all the properties recovered by the EFCC and to whom they were sold will be listed so that with a 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 same EFCC that said in April 2016 that the allegation of corruption against the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Chairman, Danladi Umar was mere suspicion and would be difficult to proof in court, but now charged 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 of the Presidential Task Force on Pensions, 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 Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (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 President said will be sold?’’

Meanwhile, the immediate past president of Association of Town Planning Consultants of Nigeria ( ATOPCON), Mr. Olaide Afolabi and the Lagos State chairman of the Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), an umbrella body of estate surveyors and valuers, Olurogba Orimolade have cautioned the Federal Government on proposed outright sale of recovered and forfeited assets, stressing the need for transparency and involvement of professionals in the exercise.