EFCC takes fight to real estate sector, promises thorough investigations

By Isa Isawade

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it has decided to take its ant-corruption fights to the real estate sector of Nigeria’s economy.

The agency said it would carry out thorough investigations into the sector as part of concerted efforts to curb corruption.

The agency’s chairman, Ola Olukoyede, made this known at an event organised by the Law Corridor Firm on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said the investigations would begin in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja

EFCC, Olukoyede said, would collaborate with other stakeholders in the real estate sector to ensure thorough investigations.

The aim, he said, would be to determine “real owners of lands across the FCT and possibly identify whether the estates are products of illicit transactions.

“Some of the estates in Abuja have been abandoned because they were being funded by some civil servants through stolen public funds and having either lost their jobs or had the source of illicit funds blocked’’.

He said that preliminary investigations had already revealed that some business ventures, including real estate, were established to scam innocent and unsuspecting Nigerians.

Olukoyede asked for cooperation and support from Nigerians in order to ease the agency’s onerous task of sanitising the country’s heavily corrupted real estate sector.

He appealed to Nigerians to collaborate with the EFCC to fish out the criminals using real estate sector to launder stolen public funds.

He vowed that tough times await cuprits and their businesses.