More than £5 million recovered from the
funds stolen by former Bayelsa State Governor Dieprieye Alamieyeseigha
was handed back to the state government in 2012, it was learnt at the
weekend.
Nigeria’s retiring High Commissioner to
the United Kingdom (UK) Dr. Dalhatu Tafida who broke the news at the at
the weekend in Birmingham where he spoke with the Nigerian community on
the amount of stolen funds received from the UK by the Federal
Government through its High Commission in London.
Tafida’s visit to Birmingham was part of
a thank-you-tour as his tenure ends on August 15, after an eight-year
stint as Nigeria’s chief envoy in the UK. He had earlier visited
Manchester, Liverpool, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Newcastle and Belfast.
According to Tafida, the £5 million was
received from the British authorities and handed over to two government
officials from Bayelsa State, who came to London for the transfer.
He told his audience that the money was lodged a Bayelsa State government account with the London branch of First Bank Plc.
Alamieyeseigha, who was impeached, tried
and convicted, got a presidential pardon in March 2013 – courtesy of
former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Justifying the clemency extended to
Alamieyeseigha, a former presidential adviser to Dr. Jonathan, Dr. Doyin
Okupe had told reporters in 2013 that the former governor was pardoned
because he had been remorseful.
“He was tried, jailed and dispossessed
of his property. He has been remorseful and there is no law against the
granting of pardons to any criminal,” Okupe had said.
Alamieyeseigha was arrested at Heathrow
Airport in September 2005 by the Metropolitan Police and initially
remanded but later granted bail.
In breach of his bail requirements, he
left the UK and returned to Nigeria in 2005. He entered a plea bargain
in a Federal High Court after being convicted on six counts of making
false declaration of assets.
Part of the money recovered, according
to the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative of the World Bank, consisted of
$1.5 million in cash, seized at the time of arrest and $2.7 million held
in bank accounts (Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, Santolina Investment
Corporation account in excess of GBP 1.8 million) and London real estate
worth $15 million (four properties registered under Solomon &
Peters Ltd. as sole proprietor).
In May 2006, a London court ordered the
confiscation of the seized cash pursuant to the Proceeds of Crime Act,
after Mr. Alamieyeseigha skipped bail and returned to Nigeria; bank
accounts and London real estate were confiscated pursuant to a December
2007 United Kingdom High Court summary judgment; and a July 2008
judgment left to confiscation of remaining assets in the United Kingdom,
Denmark and Cyprus.
Pursuant to his July 2007 plea in
Nigerian High Court, he was sentenced to a two-year prison term and his
assets in Nigeria were ordered seized.
Commenting on the alleged refusal of
President Muhammadu Buhari to ride in a Rolls Royce from the Heathrow
Airport when visiting Britain as a president- elect in May 2015, Tafida
said it was untrue that Buhari declined the offer.
The envoy said: “The story is not true.
It didn’t happen. I went to the airport to receive him right from the
plane. I took him to where he stayed and we left back to Nigeria
together.
He rode from the airport with me in my
official car, which is a bullet proof Mercedes Benz (marked FGN1). To
God who made me, Buhari did not refuse anything we gave him. That was
what I gave him for the six days he spent. Even, when he took over, I
called him, I spoke to him. Buhari is my brother.”
The retiring High Commissioner confirmed
that the High Commision indeed has a Rolls Royce, “but we didn’t send
rolls Royce to pick Buhari”.
Source: The Nation
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