A former Chairman of the Special Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property, Okoi Obono-Obla, has alleged that loot recovered under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was returned to the looters. Obono-Obla, who served as a presidential aide, claimed that the assets seized by his panel during Buhari’s tenure were not used for public benefit but instead found their way back to those who had originally misappropriated them.
According to Obono-Obla, his efforts to bring many looters to justice in the country were frustrated by officials in the same administration, including former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, whom he (Obono-Obla) described as an ‘authoritarian’.
“Some of the things I recovered were returned to the looters. For instance, there was this case of someone from whom I recovered over 80 brand new X-class Mercedes Benz cars (armoured plated) from in Jabi, Abuja.
“I wrote to the DG, Customs to ask if the person paid customs duties of the vehicles, he said ‘No’, they didn’t pay. I wrote to the Federal Inland Revenue Services to know if the person paid tax on the vehicles; he also said ‘No’ and that they don’t have the records. We went to court to get an order of interim forfeiture, and it was granted pending the hearing of the case. So, I sent a memo to Malami to brief him on what we were doing, only for him to tell me that he never mandated me to do things I investigated,” he said.
PUNCH Online observed that Obono-Obla was referring to a case involving a former Director of Power, Works, and Housing, Mr. Ibrahim Tumsah, a resident of Jabi, Abuja, from whom SPIP recovered 86 vehicles valued at about N500 million, land, houses, and farms.
“Another one is the case of a senator who was then in his sitting status and later became the President of the Senate. I found his story in the Panama Papers, which stated that he had property in offshore islands; I didn’t have the power to investigate him because it was overseas, so I went to the DG, NIA, and sought his help to work together.