As the Federal High Court in Lagos recently ordered the forfeiture of multi-billion naira assets allegedly belonging to a former Enugu State Governor, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, to the Federal government, the Editor-in-Chief of The Starlite Newspapers and the Chairman of the Nsukka Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Harrison Ogara has queried the rationale behind the forfeiture of the property to the Federal Government.
According to Mr. Ogara, the property were assets acquired by the former governor with the fund belonging to the Enugu State people adding that the Court acted in error by stating that the property so seized be released to the Federal Government.
Mr. Ogara who made this call in an interview with journalists in his office said the judgment was a pure miscarriage of justice aimed at further impoverishing the good people of the state. He called on the Enugu State Government to pursue the matter by challenging the judgment of the court in the Court of Appeal adding that if the government fails to do so, he would urge other organizations and members of the Civil Society to take up the matter in the Appeal Court.
Among the forfeited assets are undeveloped properties and transmission equipment of Rainbownet Limited; properties of Hill Gate Investment Limited/Cuena Phones Limited; assets of Cosmo 105.5FM, and 22 duplexes at Ebeano Estate (now Fidelity Estate).
Others are Rainbownet's shares in Zenith Bank and Guarantee Trust Bank, with a combined account balance of N4.6million; as well as monies in its bank accounts worth about N34.8million.
The balances are in different accounts with GTBank (N313,700); Sterling Bank (N986,958); Ecobank (N24.5million); First City Monument Bank (N3.8million) and Zenith Bank (N761,156).
EFCC said it is awaiting details of balances in Rainbownet's 10 accounts with Access Bank.
Rainbownet's undeveloped properties forfeited include seven plots at Independence Layout; 567.96 Square meters (Sqm) at Abakpa; 574.96 Sqm at Emene and 2,951.98 Sqm at Achara Layout.
Others to be forfeited include thousands of square metres of properties at Abia State, namely Ogbor Hill (914.633), Abayi (one and half plots), Port Harcourt Road (1,856.449), Ariaria (640.32), Umungasi (573.263) and Assannetu (954.396), as well as Abakiliki, Ebonyi State (one plot).
Others are in Onitsha, Anambra State, such as those at Barracks (one plot), Nkpor (1088.644), Awada (465.14), Fegge (one plot); as well as 2,200.06 square miles of land at Okpumo, Awka.
The company is also to loose 693.636 square meters of undeveloped property located opposite the War Museum, Umuahia.
Assets of Rainbownet Communications Limited, including Central Switch Room, Microwave Radio, Rectifier, Microwave Backhaul Transmission, among others at various locations in Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Abia and Imo states are to be forfeited.
The former senator was charged along with his former aide, Sunday Anyaogu and six firms- Rainbownet, Hillgate Nigeria, Cosmos FM, Capital City Automobile Nig Ltd, Renaissance University Teaching Hospital and Mea Mater Elizabeth High School.
Justice Mohammed Yunusa later split Nnamani's trial from his co-accused as he was abroad receiving treatment.
EFCC re-arraigned them on 105 counts of money laundering and economic crimes involving about N4.5billion.
Part of the alleged laundered money was from the Excess Crude Oil Funds meant for some local government areas, including Aninri, Enugu South, Agwu, Igbo Etiti and Isi Uzor, which was allegedly transferred to Nnamani's bank account in the United States.
The crime was allegedly committed while Nnamani was governor between 1999 and 2007. The defendants pleaded not guilty.
However, after the trial was split, four of the companies on May 19 pleaded guilty to a 10-count amended charge through their counsel.
The companies are Rainbownet, Cosmos FM, Capital City Automobile and Renaissance University Teaching Hospital.
They were alleged to have failed to comply with lawful inquiry made by the Commission.
On June 11, Justice Yunusa adjourned to July 7 for review of facts and sentences after EFCC's lawyer, Kelvin Uzozie told the court that he was still trying to get a list of all the companies' assets.
He prayed the court to convict the companies in view of their plea after tendering some documents, including the assets' schedule.
He also urged the court to make an order of the assets' forfeiture, and for the commission to be involved in their management.
The companies' lawyer, Mr Ifeanyi Ezeome, during the alucutus (plea for mercy), urged the court to temper justice with mercy since they were first offenders.
Justice Yunusa said a company can be treated as a natural person in law and held that: “It is hereby ordered that the properties listed in the schedule be forfeited to the Federal Government.”
He adjourned till November 12 for the trial of the remaining accused persons.
No comments:
Post a Comment