Former Chairman of the Special Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property, Okoi Obono-Obla, has disclosed that the loot recovered by his panel under former President Muhammadu Buhari was returned to the looters.
Okoi added that the Buhari led administration failed to fight corruption people thought he would.
The former aide who was appointed by the Ex-President, made the allegation on Saturday while speaking on the Mic On Podcast.
According to Okoi, 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.
He said: “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.
RRAD MORE: Insecurity Worse Under Buhari Than Tinubu – Shehu Sani
“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.”
“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.
“They conducted an investigation and sent the report to me. The report confirmed that this senator has over £200 million worth of property in the offshore islands; I sent a copy to the president and one to the Attorney General. Till today, nothing happened.”
