SAN FRANCISCO, February 28, (THEWILL) – A Federal Capital Territory High Court, sitting in Jabi, Abuja, has ordered Alhaja Moroophat Obanikoro, wife of a former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, to forfeit her property in Abuja pending the outcome of investigations of corruption against her husband and children.
THEWILL recalls that in the course of investigations into the $2.1bn arms scam (Dasukigate) involving the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had traced the transfer of about N4.7bn to the Diamond Bank account of Sylvan McNamara, a company allegedly owned by Obanikoro’s two sons, Gbolahan and Babajide.
Out of the N4.7bn, Obanikoro allegedly gave N3.880bn to Ayodele Fayose and Senator Iyiola Omisore in July 2014, when they were the Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidates in Ekiti and Osun states respectively.
Part of the money allegedly given to Fayose was said to have been converted to $5.377m and handed to him at Spotless Hotel, Ado-Ekiti, in the presence of the then Ekiti State PDP Secretary, Tope Aluko, and other party stalwarts while Obanikoro allegedly kept over N600m to himself.
The EFCC, in a bid to recover the funds seized a house in the Ikoyi area of Lagos State allegedly belonging to Obanikoro’s sons and a property located at 44 Mamman Kotangora Crescent, Katampke Extension, Abuja, belonging to their mother.
Dissatisfied by the action of the EFCC, Moroophat went to court seeking to regain the house revealing that she bought the property over seven years before the alleged arms scam took place arguing that the EFCC had no right to punish her for any crime allegedly committed by her husband and urged the court to award her N200m violating her fundamental human rights.
However, in an affidavit, deposed to by Jackson Edet, the EFCC claimed that Obanikoro’s wife could not claim to be ignorant of her husband’s alleged crime alleging that her husband and her sons collected over N600m from the ONSA for a non-existent contract.
The EFCC argued that its investigation had shown that, “the property belongs to Musiliu Obanikoro and he paid for the statutory charges for the property.”
The commission added, “That a lawyer, Tejumola Adeboye, who volunteered a statement to the commission, stated that he managed the said property and remits the rent to MON Integrated Services (a company allegedly owned by Obanikoro, which is also under probe).”
In his ruling, the Justice Y. Halilu said he could not stop the EFCC from doing its work, saying “I shall refuse the application because it is most unmeritorious and specially packaged to deceive this court. God forbid” and also rejected a prayer asking the to pay her the sum of N200m.
Obanikoro’s wife has, however, headed for the Appeal Court to challenge the court judgment.
