The whistle-blower that gave information leading to the recovery of the sums of $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000, totalling N13bn, from Flat 7B Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos has denied having being paid five per cent of the recovered sums.
A lawyer, Yakubu Galadima, who claimed to be the counsel for the unnamed whistle-blower, alleged on Friday that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had reneged on the promised five per cent.
The lawyer, who spoke with journalists on the premises of the Lagos State High Court in Ikeja on Friday, described as untrue the claim by the acting Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, that the anti-graft agency was already counselling the whistle-blower on how to make the best use of the funds.
A statement on Thursday by the spokesperson for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, quoted Magu as saying in Vienna, Austria, that the “young man” who blew the whistle had already become a millionaire.
Magu was said to have spoken at the ongoing 7th Session of the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.
“We are currently working on the young man because this is just a man who has not seen N1m of his own before… so, he is under counselling on how to make good use of the money and the security implication,” he was quoted as saying.
But Galadima claimed that the whistle-blower, his client, had been abandoned. He said the EFCC did not even know his whereabouts, let alone counsel him.
He said, “The EFCC does not even know the whereabouts of my client. He is presently living from hand to mouth having been abandoned by the commission.
“We have written to the President and even to Magu himself and we have yet to get any form of response. I even sent Magu an SMS this morning debunking the allegation that my client has been paid; but as I speak, I have yet to get a response from him.”
The lawyer said he had already written a letter dated October 10, 2017, to President Muhammadu Buhari in this regard but had yet to get any response from the presidency.
Our correspondent sighted an acknowledged copy of the letter marked “highly confidential.”
It bore the stamp of the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation, Federal Ministry of Justice, indicating that the letter was received on October 12, 2017.
Meanwhile, former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, dismissed claims by the EFCC that the whistle-blower was already a millionaire, saying rather, he had been detained in three different places and that his life could be in danger.
“I know the Ikoyi Billions whistle-blower and can confirm that he’s been despicably treated; his life could be in danger,” he wrote on his Twitter handle, @ChidiOdinkalu,
But, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission says the payment of whistle-blowers is not its direct responsibility.
The spokesperson for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said this in a statement while reacting to reports that the informant who gave the EFCC information about the seized N13bn Ikoyi cash had been neglected.
The EFCC spokesman further stated that the acting Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, never said the whistle-blower had been paid but merely stated that the man would be a millionaire and that he was undergoing counselling.
While reacting to EFCC’s statement on Friday, Odinkalu tweeted, “Really? #Nigeria’s @officialEFCC walks back false claims about payment to Ikoyi Billions# whistle-blower.”
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