Illegal Acquisition of Public Properties: Kwara to prosecute culprits
By Stephen Olufemi Oni, Ilorin
Kwara State government is set to prosecute all the people found culpable to have illegally diverted or acquired public properties in the state in a competent court of law.
Commissioner for Communications, Hon. George Olabode Towoju, who disclosed this during an interactive session with members of the Correspondents’ chapel of the NUJ at their Secretariat in Ilorin, the state capital, said the government’s legal team is putting finishing touches to all necessary nitty-gritty to ensure the success of the case in court.
He said: “We are being circumspect in pressing our charges, so that we will not lose on technical ground in the court, just like how the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) lost in a case regarding our property at AbdulRasak street in the GRA, Ilorin.
“Many of those properties illegally sold to themselves were purchased in companies’ names and this is one of the reasons for losing that particular case.”
Talking on seizure of Kwara state properties by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) over inability to offset loans accessed by the past administrations in the name of funding Shonga Farm, Towoju said the State’s legal team is currently negotiating on how to retrieve the properties.
“The fact is that, AMCON knew that Kwara state government’s shares in Shonga Farm is just 10% and how can 10% shareholder be the owner? But AMCON, as a business people deliberately held the state responsible because they know that it is the only bigger body they can drag and get something from. Even the 10% shares they claimed we have, the state has never received a dime as dividend since Shonga Farms commenced operation.
“The worst part was that out of the 13 lands they used as collateral to access those loans, they later went back and sold nine again and siphoned the money. Out of the remaining four left, one is occupied by a company called ‘Valentine Chicken’ and another one is being occupied by a Zimbabwean and he is leasing it out to Kwara northerners that are rightful owners of the land,” he added.
Towoju, a member of the white paper committee that investigated the allegations at the beginning of this administration, said: “Some of the people who signed the papers of transfer of those government properties to private companies on behalf of the Kwara state government are now Directors and stakeholders in those companies today.
“They almost sold the Shopping Mall, located at Fate road, Ilorin, if not for the quick intervention of government’s legal team under the present administration that went there and pasted restraining order.”
He, however, said that the state legal team is putting everything in place to ensure that all properties illegally acquired are retrieved back to the government, while reiterating that the AbdulRazaq administration would ensure that everyone found culpable is brought to book in order to serve as deterrent to those in public office and those that would occupy public positions in future.