FG Drags Civil Servant To Court Over Unlawful Possession of 86 Cars, 4 Houses

A federal civil servant, Mr. Ibrahim Tumsah and his brother, Mr. Tijani Tumsah, have been dragged before a Federal High Court in Abuja by the federal government of Nigeria over failure to disclose their assets.

Ibrahim is the Director of Finance and Account in the Federal Ministry of Power, Works, and Housing, while his brother, Tijani, is a member of the Presidential Committee on North East Initiative and a former Acting National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress.

The Federal Government had on January 18, 2018 filed a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CR/4/2018 containing two counts of failure of the defendants to declare their assets “without reasonable excuse and upon the notice to declare” them before the Chief Okoi Obono-Obla-led Special Presidential Investigation Panel on the Recovery of Public Property, Punch reports.

Earlier on December 6, 2017, Justice Muawiyah Idris of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Apo, Abuja, had ordered the forfeiture of 86 luxury vehicles together with four houses and a quarry plant in Abuja, all of which the panel allegedly seized from the two defendants.

Of the 86 vehicles, 23 of them are said to be armoured and brand new.

The houses are all located in Abuja, two of which are said to be located in Wuse II, one in Wuse Zone 7, and the other in Jabi.

The two brothers however pleaded not guilty to the charges when they appeared before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday.

Their lawyers, Abdul Mohammed (for Ibrahim) and Kehinde Ogunwumiju (SAN) (for Tijani), applied for their clients’ bail which was granted by the judge in the sum of N20m and other bail conditions agreed upon by the prosecution and the defence.

The prosecuting counsel, Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN), did not oppose the bail application.