Encomium
Reactions have trailed the claims of Chairman Senate Committee on Foreign and Domestic Debts, Shehu Sani about Nigeria’s 200 billion dollar hoarded to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The APC Senator for Kaduna Central Zone who also doubles as the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, while responding to questions at Kaduna revealed that the huge sum which equals N40 trillion Naira (Nigeria’s Budget for about 8 years) was pumped into Dubai, UAE’s focal point by some former governors, ex-ministers and other public officers.
This development is coming few weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to the Arab world where he signed a “Judicial Agreements on Extradition, Transfer of Sentenced Persons, Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters, and Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal and Commercial Matters, which includes the recovery and repatriation of stolen wealth.”
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has immediately swung into investigative actions to get a clearer picture of how the money was laundered through the phony real estate transaction and whose names out of the previous political office holders make the list of looters.
The First Group Company, a Dubai property firm in Abuja suffers the first punch of the anti-graft agency, as two its officials have been arrested and are undergoing interrogations. The Abuja branch of the company sited on the seventh-floor of the Bank of Industry building in the Central Business District of the Federal Capital Territory has been sealed off; many unsuspecting Nigerians have lost millions of naira by being lured to invest in some of Dubai’s real estate with some high profile Nigerians as patrons on some company documents and computers.
While a prominent Nigerian is lamenting to have lost over $402,000 to The First Group Company, seven ex-governors, six former ministers, a former presidential aide and other party chieftains with alleged funds or properties in Dubai are closely monitored.
President Muhammadu Buhari and his anti-corrupt team including the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami, EFCC Chairman Ibrahim Magu and detectives from the anti-graft agency has vowed not to cover up anyone after a meeting with some of their UAE counterparts earlier this year.
SeyifunmiAdebote for encomium.ng
