Tosin Ojaomo, a lawyer, has accused the Attorney General of
the Federation, Abubakar Malami of frustrating investigations into stolen
assets.
The legal practitioner said the minister frustrated efforts
by the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property
to recover $60b from Texas, United States.
He made the allegations on Wednesday at the investigative
hearing organized by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on recovered
assets.
According to Ojaomo, “there was an intelligence given to the
panel that the sum of $60 billion belonging to the Nigerian government is
currently being domiciled at Texas in the United States of America which the
panel has started working on, sir. All this has been taken over by the
Attorney-General of the Federation.”
He alleged that the money was stolen through the NNPC. He
also accused the NNPC of keeping $223 million in a domiciliary account in Skye
Bank, now known as Polaris Bank.
According to him, Mr Malami took over all the cases. Another
case cited by the lawyer was a public officer who was also investigated based
on intelligence by the panel. The said public officer was found with 86 luxury
vehicles. Part of them are 20 bulletproof vehicles. Properties worth 700
million. The man is just a director at the ministry. He was thoroughly
investigated and those properties recovered from him.”
Following the testimony by Mr Ojaomo, the Chairman of the
Committee, Adejoro Adeogun, ruled that the committee will be invited to defend
himself.
It would be recalled that Mr Malami appeared before the
committee on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, also appeared before the committee on
Wednesday.
The committee raised a question on the total number of
assets recovered by the EFCC.
According to the committee, the Nigerian Navy has a record
of giving 46 seized vessels to the EFCC, however, the record by the EFCC shows
33 vessels.
There were also questions on the asset recovery account of
the EFCC. A member of the committee, Edun Oladapo from Ogun State, flagged two
transactions in the account of the EFCC.
According to the lawmaker, the two transactions had
discrepancies resulting in missing of about N11 million.
A few minutes into the hearing, the EFCC chairman said he
had a meeting to attend at the Presidential Villa.
Although he promised to return by 3pm, he failed to show up.
Consequently, the committee asked Mr Bawa to appear before
it on Friday.
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