N13billion Ikoyi Cash: Open Up On The Ownership Now, CHRSJ Tells Buhari, EFCC

As controversy still rages over the ownership of the residential building where sum of $43.4million, N23million and £27,000 totaling N13billion, located at the Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos State, were found, a human rights group, the Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice(CHRSJ) has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari led-Federal Government and its anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to open up on the owner of the building without further delaying so as to know the actual owner of the cash.

The group also urged the present Federal Government under Buhari’s watch to stop all the propaganda surrounding the fight against corruption, urging the government to arrest the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) who earlier claimed the agencyownership of the N13billion cash, questioning rhetorically when the private apartment became the depositor bank of NIA after the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the present administration in Nigeria

In a statement issued and signed by the CHRSJ’s Executive Chairman, Comrade Adeniyi, Alimi Sulaiman and a copy was made available to newsmen on Wednesday, disclosed that no right thinking Nigeria would believe the story of the anti-graft agency surrounding the cash found, saying that such an edifice could not be erected in the heart of Lagos State without the owner, adding that the story of unknown house like unknown Soldier could not be flying in the ear of Nigerians.

Comrade Sulaiman stated that it could not be possible for any security agent or anti-graft agency to enter a residential building without knowing the real occupant or owner of such building, stating that no   whistle-blower would give information of this nature without knowing the actual occupant of such residential building.

CHRSJ also demanded from President Buhari to originate a bill on whistle-blower policy that would be sent to the National Assembly for passage as part of effort to give legal backing to the public interested policy (Whistle-blower) , saying that the way and manner the EFCC has been giving noise to the fight against corruption, made the Nigerians to doubt the seriousness of the present government on the fight against menace of corruption in our land.

The group disclosed that every action of the government in Nigeria should be an open activity as democracy detests secrecy and Nigerians have every right to know what is going on in the government so as to make leaders accountable to the governed in line with the ethics of democracy all over the world.

According to the statement; “This is the high time for President Muhammadu Buhari to tell the whole world that he has the political will to fight the corruption without fear or favour by set up high power Independent panel of Inquiry which will involve the officials of United Nations to investigate and unravel the the real owner of N13billion cash discovered in a private residence in Ikoyi, Lagos state. It would not be augur well for the Federal Government to say that it did not know the actual owner of the Ikoyi house in question where gargantuan amount of acclaimed illegal fund were discovered.

“The whistle-blower policy is a very good and lofty idea which should not be allowed to die prematurely and President Muhamadu Buhari should do the needful by drafting a bill on it and send it to the National Assembly for quick passage as a matter of urgency on public interest. The fight against corruption should be sustained within the ambit of the law. This whistle-blower policy must give legal backing and Federal Government should not allow loosing another more cases as a result of lack of legal backing for whistle-blowing policy”.