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House of Reps demands report of seized assets from Abacha, other past leaders

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House of Reps demands report of seized assets from Abacha, other past leaders

 

The House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the abandonment of Federal Government property across the country, has called for the report of all assets seized from past leaders.

The committee specifically demanded the report of assets seized from the estate of late former military Head of State, Gen Sani Abacha, within and outside Nigeria.

“We want a report on all seized assets from our leaders, particularly Abacha, in and out of Nigeria. We need to know the state of those properties and to also know if the properties have titles,” Chairman of the committee, Ademorin Kuye, declared, while responding to a presentation by the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) on Federal Government Landed Property, which appeared before the House committee.

The Presidential committee had stated that it has the powers to sell or lease out any property of the Federal Government without prior knowledge of the ministry, department or agency using it.

Secretary of the PIC, Bala Sanusi, speaking at the resumed investigative hearing of the House committee, noted that it would be cumbersome for the presidential panel to inform all the MDAs of its intention to sell or lease out the over 25,000 properties handed over to it by the Federal Government.

Sanusi said this while responding to questions on the sale of a property located on 45, Martins Street, Lagos State, which belonged to the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), to Seamens Traders Limited, for N100 million.

READ: Supreme Court refuses to grant order giving Abacha family access to stolen funds

The Director-General of the FRCN, Mansur Liman, who also testified before the committee, had informed the lawmakers that the property was sold without the corporation’s knowledge.

Sanusi, however, told the committee that the six-storey building, sitting on 387 square metres of land, was sold as a burnt property in 2010, adding that it was gutted by fire before the sale and was also gutted by fire before it was handed over to the buyers in 2019.

When the lawmakers enquired whether the property was sold at a give-away price of N100 million because it was a burnt property, the PIC scribe however backtracked, saying he was not in a position to say whether it was burnt or not, since he was not the secretary of the PIC when it was sold.

Sanusi said, “I will inform this gathering that the mandate of this committee is by the President-in-Council. (The Federal Executive) Council gave us the mandate to lease Federal Government property in Nigeria and outside Nigeria.

“We are not selling, we are leasing and after the expiration of the lease, the property will revert back to the government. The mandate was initially restricted to Lagos. But later, Council expanded the mandate of the committee to other states except the FCT. We have been exercising this mandate for a long time.”

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