Gboyega Adeoye
The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has commended the ruling of the Kwara State High court sitting in Ilorin, that ordered the final forfeiture to a plaza valued at about N150m to the Federal Government.
The plaza, belonging to a civil servant in the state iis now the property of the Federal Government in line with the judgement of Justice Sikiru Oyinloye of the state’s High Court.
A release issued by CACOL’s Executive Chairman, Debo Adeniran states:
“It was reported that a High court sitting in Ilorin, Kwara state, gave an order of forfeiture of a plaza, valued at N150m (One Hundred and Fifty Million Naira) in a case filed by agents of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against a Civil Servant in the state named, Razaq Momonu. The said Momonu is an Assistant Director and an Accountant with the Kwara State Government. He was said to have used his influence and position to inflate contracts awarded for the construction of two (2) classrooms in certain communities in Kwara State. In the affidavit deposed to by the EFCC in court, it was clearly stated that this government worker was at a level in the civil service where he earned less than N100, 000 (One Hundred Thousand Naira) monthly but was able to build this Asmau Plaza worth N150mn with two (2) YEARS, 2010 and 2012, a period of two years within which he could not have saved more than N2.4mn (Two Million, Four Hundred Thousand Naira were he not to spend a dime from his monthly take-home.
“Also, one begins to wonder why our educational system continues to wobble and fumble with all the allocations to it from respective federal and state governments, year in year out. This is a confirmation of how such scarce resources simply vanish into thin air through inflated contracts, syphoning of the larger proportion of sums budgeted and diversion of such finances. It is therefore incumbent on the two anti-graft agencies, the EFCC and ICPC (Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission) to sustain and further intensify their commendable efforts in nipping much of this illegal expropriation of our resources in the bud and recover the ill-acquired wealth as much as possible, with a view to plugging them back to their original purposes.”
“We insist that, it is not only criminal and condemnable to betray the public trust that has placed such civil servant in a position of authority and control after much training, to simply betray such confidence reposed in him by enriching his own pockets without considerations of the remote and immediate consequences on innocent compatriots and the larger society such illicit actions may ultimately rob of desired effects. This is why culprits of official corruption need to be deprived of their evil accumulations, wherever and whenever they are found out, and made to face the consequence of their acts as a just supper”.
