Ribadu’s claim on sale of assets fraudulent -EFCC

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has described a statement credited to the lawyer of former Chairman of the anti-graft agency, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu on the disposal of assets of convicted persons, as insincere and fraudulent.

In a reaction to claims by Charles Musa who is a lawyer to Ribadu, that the present EFCC Chairman, Mrs Farida Waziri supervised the sale of the assets of former Bayelsa state governor, DSP Alamieyeseigha and those of Emmanuel Nwude, the Commission said the lawyer was being economical with the truth.

The EFCC said that though it is not aware of how the report being disputed by Musa got to the media, it however confirmed that some of the facts in the media reports were part of the findings of a Committee which had in the first quarter of 2009 worked on the disposal of assets of convicted persons.

i. In her determination to put the record straight, Mrs Waziri had on assumption of office in June 2008 invited Mr Ribadu to come and provide information on case files and assets of convicted persons whose lawyers had written series of petitions alleging shady deals in the sale of their property since there was no proper handover note. It is on record that he didn’t honour the invitation but took the Commission to court.

ii. A Committee was subsequently constituted to ascertain the entirety of assets recovered/seized by the Commission from inception to date among others.

iii. The Committee later turned in a report which raised mind bogging observations on the sale of Alamieyeseigha, Nwude and Tafa Balogun’s assets.

iv. It is obvious that Musa lied in his statement when he claimed that Ribadu only investigated and prosecuted Alamieyeseigha and Nwude’s matters while Waziri sold their assets.

v. The question then is, was Waziri the EFCC Chairman in 2006 when Alamieyeseigha and Nwude’s assets were sold in breach of EFCC Establishment Act and extant Financial Regulations or was it Waziri that supervised how the proceeds were diverted then?.

vi. Was Waziri the EFCC chairman in 2006 when all of Alamieyeseigha’s property in Pot Harcourt and Abuja were sold to the same person under the guise of two different legal non- entities?

Musa may still need to tell Nigerians and indeed the world why his statement failed to explain the sale of Tafa Balogun’s property. Could it be because there was no reason to attribute that to Waziri or because he was scared of mentioning that out of nine companies that bought the property, six of them are fake companies? He needs another statement to explain the individuals behind these ghost companies and why the bulk of the houses were sold to them at ridiculously cheap prices. Or could it also be because he was scared of letting the public know that the property were sold at rates below the value of the land they were built on because the same person was the valuer, seller and cashier?

viii. If Musa has started shifting blame at this point, what will he do if he sees the entire report of the Committee?.

viv. We like to remind Musa that these are atrocities that are better defended before a competent court of law rather than an attempt to blackmail in the media.