The
Chief Okoi Obono-Obla-led Special Investigation Panel on the recovery
of public property, has issued a 21-days quit notice to three of
Nigeria's influential politicians to vacate their residences.
Ike Ekweremadu
The Special Presidential Investigation Panel, for Recovery of
Public Property has given the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, a
former Speaker of the House of Reps, Dimeji Bankole, and former Chief
Justice of Nigeria, Aloysius Katsina-Alu, 21 days to vacate their
residences.
The Chief Okoi Obono-Obla-led panel issued the quit notice on
Thursday to the three politicians, as well as former Deputy Speaker and
current Senator Usman Bayero Nafada.
A former Senate President, David Mark, received similar quit notice
from the Panel back in September to which he had since filed a suit
before the Federal High Court in Abuja to quash all the steps taken to
evict him and recover the house from him by the panel.
The panel said the five of them illegally acquired their then-official residences as their private properties.
According to DailyTrust, the immediate past President Goodluck
Jonathan had in November 2010 reportedly gave leave to the Senate
President, the Deputy Senate President, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives,
to “purchase” their official quarters.
A source said, “The Senate President’s residence was sold to
David Mark for N748 million; Speaker, House of Representatives’
residence was sold to Hon Dimeji Bankole for N670 million; while Deputy
Senate President residence was sold to Senator Ike Ekweremadu for N458
million.
“Deputy Speaker House of Representatives residence was sold to
Senator Nafada for N348.5 million; and they were all sold without
competitive bidding contrary to the provisions of the Public Procurement
Act especially Section 15 thereof”, one of the sources said, adding
that the residence of Juctice Katsina-Alu was sold to him at
N45million."
The newspaper also reports that former President Jonathan had
directed that the sale of the property should be gazetted in the Federal
Government Gazette in his minute in a memo sent to him by the then
minister of the FCT Senator Bala Muhammad dated 18 November 2010, but
that was not done.
The source added, “A gazette is a notice to the whole world of
the position of government on any issue and since there was a prevailing
gazette that the house bought by the plaintiff (referring to David
Mark) should not be sold under Government monetization policy, the
gazette would have superseded the previous one.
“So the previous gazette prevails since the sale was not
gazetted. That alone has vitiated the sale. Secondly the sale is against
the public procurement Act which provides any contract for a good and
service must be through competitive bidding. The sale was not through
competitive bidding.”
According to the news outlet added that the houses, which were not
ordinary houses but institutional houses to principal officers of the
National Assembly and the Executive had no right in the first place to
given order for the houses to be sold.
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