Former Bayelsa state governor, Timipre Sylva, has denied media reports
that the EFCC has returned 48 houses seized from him while carrying out
investigations into allegations of misappropriation of funds while he
was in office. In a statement released yesterday by his media adviser,
Doifie Buokoribo, the former governor stated that there was no time the
courts confirmed his ownership of such property.
“We have read a report in a national newspaper, which was reproduced by a
few online publications and in the social media, claiming that Chief
Timipre Sylva had ‘retrieved 48 of his properties which the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission seized during the administration of
Goodluck Jonathan. We view this report with disgust, given its
unconcealed speculation and vindictiveness regarding such a sensitive
matter. For the avoidance of doubt, Sylva does not own 48 buildings in
Abuja or anywhere in the world. So the issue of reclaiming ‘48 houses’
does not arise. He has only three houses in Abuja, which he built before
he became the governor of Bayelsa State. This point has been made
several times before, and neither EFCC nor those who had used EFCC as a
tool of persecution against Sylva during the Goodluck Jonathan
administration have contradicted this fact. EFCC had taken their
allegations of property ownership against Sylva to several courts
without establishing anything against the former governor during the
Jonathan era. Beyond the commission’s routine media prosecution, no
court of law has found Sylva guilty of any crime. Indeed, in the course
of the trials at the Federal High Court, Abuja, owners of some of the
properties wrongfully attributed to him joined to claim their houses.
The court ruled on the matter of the said 48 properties since 2013. Why
is it now a subject of media attention? Clearly, this is a sponsored
publication. Sylva takes great exception to the wholly speculative and
vindictive report on the matter. He frowns on the malicious audacity of
the publishers of such a story, or their sponsors, despite warnings by
the courts against media prosecutions and persecutions like this one,
and the attempts by the EFCC to burnish its image that was mindlessly
battered during the last administration. After failing to prove any
crime against Sylva in a democratic court of law for the past four
years, this latest media show is another desperate attempt to rubbish
him politically. To correct the wrong impression that sponsors of the
falsehood against him are, obviously, trying to create, Sylva has
instructed his lawyers to take legal action against publishers of the
fake story.”
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