- No sir!
The Federal Govt must publish a list of recovered properties, their owners and buyers, when eventually sold
It is indeed perverse to run an anti-graft war with any element of secrecy. This, essentially, is the point Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State seems to want to press upon the Federal Government.
Last week, he had issued a press release through his media aide, requesting government to publish a list of all properties it reportedly recovered from Nigerians in the course of its ant-corruption battles. He also urged that the names of the buyers of such properties should be made known to the public when they are eventually sold.
Fayose may have earned his place as the enfant terrible of today’s politics in Nigeria and a rabble-rouser even; but on this matter he is spot on.
Hear him: “Nigerians want to know how many properties were recovered and who bought the properties. Who authorised the sale? Nigerians want details, not propaganda because most of these properties have been sold and resold.
“The Federal Government should create a website where all the properties recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and to whom they were sold will be listed so that by one click, Nigerians will have information.”
That is a strong allegation against the EFCC which has not been rebutted till date but Fayose’s seeming clarion call stems from his fears that the EFCC cannot be trusted with such quantity of assets. And he cited some examples among which is that: “On November 23, 2017, Senator Emmanuel Paulker, the chairman of the Senate Committee investigating the botched reinstatement and promotion of former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pensions under the leadership of 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 the officials of the EFCC.”
Fayose also pointed out what seemed like a corroboration of the above citing the testimony of Abubakar Malami, Attorney-General of the Federation before the National Assembly, alleging that one of the properties recovered from alleged looter of pension funds was already sold to a Lagos lawyer.
As noted earlier, any hint of opacity would taint even the best anti-corruption system anywhere. It is trite that in this electronic age, the EFCC does not have a website that holds comprehensive information of all its activities. The agency should require no promptings in making every fact about its work available to the public on real time basis.
It is on record that a non-governmental organisation (SERAP) had gone to court to demand more transparency in and proper handling of recovered monies and properties but the EFCC seems to resist this call till date.
More worrisome is the fact that it is these properties, which have not been properly accounted for, at least in the eye of the public, that President Muhammadu Buhari has indicated are to be sold off. Recall that the monies so far recovered and declared to have been properly confiscated by the government have already been captured for spending in this year’s budget.
We restate that anti-corruption fight must be holistic, transparent and open to all. There should be nothing hidden to the public or seen to be hidden. In fact the hallmark of a successful anti-graft war is to leave nothing to the imagination of the members of the public.
The Federal Government must hearken to Fayose this time. And as he has noted, the list should be tracked back to 2006. Fayose wants Nigerians to be apprised of the recovered properties sold by Ibrahim Magu; Ibrahim Lamorde and other previous EFCC chairmen. Those who bought the properties should also be made public.
