The Federal Government of Nigeria has asked buyers of two drug-linked estate properties in Lagos to pay extra N31 million which it said was the value of the properties at the time there were confiscated.
The decision was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday following a memo earlier submitted to it by the Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola which said, the estate was undervalued at the time of its seizure in 2021.
President Muhammadu Buhari presided over the meeting which took place at the presidential villa, Abuja.
A four-bedroom bungalow on Adeniyi Jones Avenue Lagos, and five-bedroom duplex on Amadasun Street in GRA, Ikoyi, Lagos, the Minister said, were seized by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in the course of narcotic prosecution.
According to Fashola, the properties were sold for N2 million and N5 million respectively in 2001, noting that the Federal Government wants the buyers to pay the sum of N18 million for the bungalow and N21 million for the duplex, bringing the total extra amount to be paid to N31 million.
Though, he shrouded names of buyers in secrecy, the Minister and former governor of Lagos State stated that if the properties were properly valued, it would have amounted to N18 million and N20 million respectively.
He noted that the NDLEA Act of the time gave precedence to the directives from the Ministry of Justice and regulations were made according to powers under the Act.
“But they did not take cognisance of the procurement law and the financial regulations of the time.
“We are now saying that going forward, the financial regulations must take precedence. Those are all proposals that will come as a new law when the Ministry of Finance finishes with them, so that you cannot have different regulations for disposal of assets that have been forfeited to the government. They must be subject to one superior procedure,” he said.
