Court orders NDDC ex-ED, Omatsuli, to forfeit N846.03m properties

The Federal High Court in Lagos on Thursday ordered the temporary forfeiture of four landed properties linked to a former Executive Director, Projects, Niger Delta Development Commission, Mr. Tuoyo Omatsuli.

The four properties, located in highbrow Lekki Peninsula Scheme area of Lagos, were valued at N846.03m.

Justice Chuka Obiozor made an order for the temporary forfeiture of the properties on Thursday following an ex parte application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The anti-graft agency claimed in the ex parte application that the properties were reasonably suspected to have been acquired with proceeds of unlawful activities.

In an affidavit deposed to by one of its investigators, Adamu Yusuf, the EFCC claimed that Omatsuli received a bribe of N3,645,000,000 from a consultant to the NDDC, Starline Consultancy Services Limited.

According to the anti-graft agency, Starline Consultancy Services Limited was engaged by the NDCC to help it recover its statutory three per cent annual budgets of oil and gas producing companies in the Niger Delta.

Yusuf said it was agreed that Starline Consultancy Services Limited would be paid 10 per cent commission on the total funds recovered from the oil and gas companies for the NDDC.

He said to recover the funds,  Starline Consultancy Services Limited sought and got the help of the House of Representatives Committee on NDCC, which wrote several letters to the oil and gas companies to demand that they pay their statutory levies to the NDDC.

According to Yusuf, Starline Consultancy Services Limited eventually succeeded in the job and was paid a total N10,218,019,060.59 as its 10 per cent commission between August 22, 2014, and June 25, 2015.

The investigator said some of the approvals to pay the consultancy fee were signed by Omatsuli as the ED, Project of the NDDC.