CHAIRMAN of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC), Mr. Ekpo Nta yesterday stunned the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating the alleged land swap, allocations and racketeering in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), when he revealed that his agency seized a total of 61 houses from an official of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSDC) in the course of the investigations into the land scam in FCT.
Other seizures by the anti-graft agency, according to him include 45 plots of land at different locations within the FCT and a duplex while several banks’ accounts used for the illegal land deal had been traced and frozen.
He said that the Agency embarked on the investigation following a formal complaint from the Commandant General of the NSDC, Dr. Ade Abolurin who personally visited him on May 15, this year that some of the officials of the Corps were involved in selling lands illegally to unsuspecting members of the public in the name of the Agency under non-existing housing estate scheme in Abuja and Nasarawa State respectively and demanded for full investigation into the scam with a view to getting to the root of the matter.
According to Nta, “impressed by the action of the Commandant General of the Corps who reported his own officials for alleged wrong doings and demanding for an independent investigation, I commenced an immediate investigation by directing the Special Squad I set up on land matters to swing into action and the team even started with some officers who the CG came with”.
“We made findings, we made efforts to get additional information from other government agencies and banks which assisted us immensely in the course of our investigations”, he further explained.
According to Nta, “In the course of the investigation, we established that six different companies were used in the scam, we froze the banks’ accounts of certain officers and the companies used, we seized several property including 61 houses, 45 plots of land and a duplex traced to some of the officers, interestingly, the 61 houses made up of 40 units of three bedroom flats, 20 units of two bedroom flats and a duplex were seized from a single officer”.
While stating that all the interrogated officers had been released on administrative bail except one who was on the run said that investigation had revealed that the affected officers used the NSCDC’s Co-operative Society to swindle the members of the public who thought it was a genuine transaction since it involved the name of the Corps and the transactions took place within the premises of the FCT Command of the Corps located at Gudu district and the officers always wear NSDC uniform during such illegal transactions.
On whether the NSDC as an organisation was culpable or not, Nta declared that investigation so far showed that the CG of the Corps, Dr. Abolurin, knew nothing about the deal until it got wind of the development which he promptly reported to the ICPC for an independent investigation, saying that it was a rare occurrence for any public officer or head of any organisation to take such an action against officers of his own organisation.
On whether there would be a way of compensating the 186 victims of the scam since the property of the perpetrators had been seized, the ICPC boss said, “that is beyond our power, the final decision rests on court, ours is to arrest, investigate and prosecute, but as we speak, we have established abuse of office against some of the officers investigated, it is the court that will now decide their fate.”
Chairman of the Committee, Bimbo Daramola commended the submission of the ICPC boss on the matter, saying that it would assist in getting to the root of the menace of land scam in the FCT.
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