A former chairman of the Special Investigation Panel (SPIP) for the Recovery of Public Property, Okoi Obono-Obla, has revealed that the loot recovered during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari was returned to the looters.
Obono-Obla made this allegation on Saturday during an interview with TV presenter Seun Okinbaloye on Mic On Podcast.
The former SPIP chairman also spoke on the level of corruption in the Nigerian system, lamenting that it is very bad. Speaking of how bad corruption is in the country, he disclosed that all his efforts to bring many looters to justice were met with frustration from different quarters.
The former presidential aide, mentioning names, said his efforts were frustrated by the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, and other officials in the Buhari administration.
“Some of the things I recovered were returned to the looters. There was this case of someone from whom I recovered over 80 brand new X-class Mercedes Benz cars (armoured plated) from Jabi, Abuja,” Obono-Obla said.
“I wrote to the Director-General (DG) of Customs and the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) to ask if the person paid customs duties and tax on the vehicles, but they said no.
“We got an order of interim forfeiture from the court 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.”
Then Acting President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo in August 2017 established the SPIP as an independent investigative panel to recover Nigeria’s looted assets.
Osinbajo set it up to also investigate specifically mandated cases of corruption, abuse of office, and similar offences by public officers.
Former President Buhari, however, dissolved the panel in September 2019 and directed Malami to immediately take over all outstanding investigations and other activities.
