The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission recovered over200 properties including plazas, bungalows, and mansions, from suspected corrupt individuals in the last eight months.
The Chairman of the Commission, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, disclosed this at a meeting with the management of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, also boasting that the agency was course to recover additional 100 houses from corrupt elements and would increase the number of seized assets to 300 before the end of the year.
Owasanoye said the Commission was working with the Federal Ministry of Works to map out the identified assets with a view to ascertaining their value and how best they can be put to use by the federal government upon final forfeiture.
He further revealed that ICPC has recovered
over 200 assets under my watch. We are working hard to get to 300 before the
end of the year. Some of these properties are under interim forfeiture, while
others are under final forfeiture.”
Earlier, the Director-General of the Nigerian institute of
Advanced Legal studies, Professor Muhammed Ladan, pleaded with the Commission
to help the agency to secure temporary office accommodation for its staff.
Professor Ladan while bemoaning of the lack of office space for the over 317 staff of NIALS said that the institute has been squatting at the Supreme Court Complex in Abuja for more than 20 years, and at the University of Lagos for about 40 years.
He further said that the basement of the Supreme Court occupied by over 38 staff of NIALS was not comfortable, He however urged Independent corrupt practices and other related offences commission to help procure one of the recovered properties as a temporary office for the institute.
The ICPC chairman, in his response, gave the assurance that the Commission would work within the confines of the law to render any assistance to the institute in terms of temporary office accommodation, while also advising the Nigeria institute of Advanced Legal studies to seek for ways to develop its permanent office.
