NITEL land sale: The twists and turns, CBN exonerates Jonathan, Adoke

By Chinweoke Akoma, Tina Ogbebor & Olufunmilayo Obadina

The allegations of unwholesome deals in the sale of a parcel of land that once belonged to NITEL assumed a new twist after an online publication went to town that the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), received two houses as bribes from a businessman.

The gesture was said to have been for facilitating the resale of the said land to a government agency. However, sources close to NITEL says one of the alleged properties, located on Gana Street near the Hilton Hotel, Abuja, does not belong to the Attorney General but is the new corporate office of an oil firm.

The online publication alleged that an Abuja-based property developer paid bribes to public officials under the Umar Yar’Adua administration to buy a government-owned land and that the developer further compromised government officials in the President Goodluck Jonathan administration to be able to sell the choice land years later at a huge profit to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which plans to build on it an international conference centre.

The publication further alleged that “several officials involved in the deal received a share of the loot”.

Meanwhile, the CBN has cleared Adoke and President Goodluck Jonathan of involvement in any deal concerning the NITEL land.

Mr. Paul Omeogor of the watchdog group, Truth Alliance, also said the timing of the accusation, particularly against the Attorney General, was suspicious.

President Jonathan

Omeogor, whose group is a keen follower of activities in the anti-corruption corridor and indeed an observer at the workshop on “stolen asset recovery”, pointed out that the target of the allegation against the president and the Attorney General was obviously to manipulate public opinion at a time the anti-corruption war was beginning to gather momentum.

“Ï find it curious that somebody is throwing dirt just when the mechanism of the corruption war was being bolstered and the process strengthened. Anyone can see from the recent arraignment by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) of four former governors that there is a sharp departure from what we were used to; it is no longer a case of going through the motion, charging former public office holders to court, granting them bail and the whole process is put to sleep.

The seriousness demonstrated so far remains unprecedented and it is a credit to the reforms by the Attorney General who is the obvious target of these detractors”, he stated.

The Truth Alliance boss emphasised that much as almost every NITEL transaction has remained controversial beginning with many botched privatisation efforts, the Abuja developer purchased the land during the Yar’Adua’s administration when Adoke was not yet the Attorney General. He described as wicked a suggestion that the developer got a good bargain from the CBN because he and the Attorney General are both from Kogi State.

Emphasising that the budding political will to tackle corruption must be encouraged, Omeogor warned that the land story was an attempt to ambush the justice minister who, he said, had articulated plan for a wide range reform in the justice sector for improved institutional mandates and structures of anti-corruption institutions in the context of efficient justice delivery and accountability.

Sources said the NITEL land, which had an uncompleted building on it, was more or less an abandoned project before it was sold to the oil firm. Mr. Ola Muyideen, a property lawyer familiar with the sale of government properties under the monetization policy, also speaking on the matter, said the uncompleted building project was somewhat jinxed having been initiated by NITEL under the General Sani Abacha regime.

“Just as the botched privatisation of NITEL, it would appear anyone who touches anything NITEL even with a long pole cannot go unscathed. Before the oil firm bought the land, the property was abandoned by successive administrations from Abacha to Abdulsalami to eight years of Obasanjo to Yar’Adua. We are talking about four successive governments.

“Before NITEL was liquidated, the piece of land was handed over to the Ministry of Communications by the Obasanjo government. When the ministry apparently had no idea of what to do with it, the land was sold to the property developer by the succeeding administration of Umaru Yar’Adua”, Muyideen stated.

The property lawyer further explained that the Ministry of Communications could not have done much anyway, given the implementation of the monetization policy for public officials which saw government selling off most properties owned by it. He did not see any impropriety, as suggested by the online publication, in the Central Bank having need for an international conference centre to purchase a parcel of land from the developer or anyone to build one.

Picking hole in the allegation that the CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido facilitated the land deal and that CBN officials were rewarded with N1billion, Muyideen described the accusation as laughable, saying the property developer must be something of a maverick to be able to bribe the president, the Attorney General and the CBN governor at the same time.

According to the property lawyer, it was worrisome that all the allegations in the online publication are not products of petitions or protests, but from faceless sources. He denied knowledge of any offer from former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to buy the “ NITEL land” for N3.5 billion from the developer.

He said even if such an offer was made, the fact that the businessman turned down several offers over the years before he finally sold to the CBN showed that the offers were not good enough just as it dismissed the claim that the same businessman was owing some banks and needed money desperately.

He said a similar contradiction can be seen in the allegation that the developer forced the CBN to use his own evaluators to determine the value of the property he wanted to sell to them.

Meanwhile, the CBN has described the process of its purchase of the property as transparent.

The apex bank Head of Corporation Communications, M.M. Abdullahi, said transparency and due diligence were exercised in the transaction which “was considered to be in the best interest of the nation”.

Abdullahi explained: “Indeed, when the idea for a befitting Conference Centre in Nigeria was muted, the issue of an ideal location became paramount. Hence, when Messrs A. Group Properties Limited approached the CBN and offered to sell the plot of land and the existing (uncompleted) structure, the CBN expressed interest in the property offered because of its location and suitability for the proposed project.

“In pursuance to that, the CBN engaged two registered and reputable Estate Surveyors and Valuers, Messrs Ora Egbunike & Associates and Emeka Okaro & Company to evaluate the property and advise the CBN on the market value of the property as at the time. The reports independently compiled by the firms put the value at N17.8 billion and N18.35 billion respectively as the market value of the property as at December 2010.

“Irrespective of these valuation reports, the CBN Management directed further negotiations with the property owner in order to beat down the price. After due negotiations, A Group Properties Ltd agreed to sell the property at the cost of N17.5bn as against their asking price of N22bn.

“As regards the mode of payment which was effected in two tranches, the property owner had disclosed to the CBN that the Title Deeds of the property were domiciled with Skye Bank to which he was indebted to and directed that the first tranche be paid directly to Skye Bank to offset his indebtedness and free the title documents to the CBN.

“The CBN thereafter, offset the owner’s indebtedness to Skye Bank based on his request and collected the Title Deeds in respect of the property from Skye Bank, while the balance was paid to the owner through the account details of another bank supplied by him”.

It should be noted, therefore, that the Board of the CBN, in approving the purchase of the property, was guided by the advice of professional Estate Valuers as regards to the value of the property at the time of purchase in December 2010.

“The CBN as an open and transparent institution wishes to invite interested groups or individuals to appoint a professional estate valuer at its cost to evaluate the property and submit findings that can genuinely fault the price paid for the property at the time purchased.

“Infact, while pushing for the building of a world class Conference Centre in Abuja vide Public Private partnership (PPP), the CBN had cause to call for another independent valuation of the same property by Rowland Abonta & Company which came up to N19.04bn as the current value of the property in August 2011.

“We wish to also categorically state that while the president approved the idea of having a world class Conference Centre in Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan and the Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, had nothing to do with the transaction at any point in time and neither of them introduced the property owner to the CBN”..