Court orders Permsec to forfeit N664m to FG

Justice Abdulaziz Anka of a Federal High Court, Lagos has ordered the interim forfeiture of N664 million recovered from a serving Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr Clement Illoh Onubuogo. Onubuogo allegedly converted the funds from theN10billion released by the federal government during his supervision of the Subsidy Reinvestment programme (SURE-P). Also, Anka authorized the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to seize a property described as “Clement Illoh’s Mansion” located at Ikom Quarters, Issala-Azegba in Delta State and a hotel at No. 19, Madue Nwafor Street, off Achala Ibuzo Road, Asaba, Delta state. Th e court has directed EFCC to notify Onubuogo to appear in court or face permanent forfeiture of the properties in his name. Th e court also directed the publication of the interim orders in any national newspaper for any interested person to appear before the judge to show cause within 14 days why the order should not be made permanent. Counsel to EFCC, Rotimi Oyedepo, arguing his matter told the court that both buildings belong to the permanent secretary and were reasonably suspected to be proceeds of stealing. Oyedepo, in the application of August 15, 2017, persuaded the judge that if the matter was not “urgently determined during vacation, the assets will be dissipated.” He said the N664,475,246.6 consisted of N437,348,181.16, N97,300,613.44 found in Onubuogo’s First Bank account No. 3033750243 and N129,826,452.00 found in the possession of 15 persons working under Onubuogo’s supervision at the Ministry of Labour and Employment.