$4.5m Missing From Sale Of Seized Properties Traced To Cecilia Ibru

Cecilia Ibru

Discrepancies Arise On Proceeds Of Sale Of Ibru’s Forfeited Assets To The FG

Some properties purportedly owned by Cecilia Ibru, former managing director/chief executive officer of Oceanic Bank are allegedly tied up in a new controversy after it was seized almost a decade ago.

A federal High Court in Lagos, convicted Ibru of stealing billions of naira and made her to serve 18 months imprisonment in 2010.

She was also ordered to give N191 billion valued assets to the Federal Government. The assets were located in Nigeria, US and Dubai.

However, After seven years, proceeds from some of the forfeited properties are yet to be fully accounted for.

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission( EFCC) showed a fact sheet of the over $7 million recovered from the sale of 61 of such properties in Dubai, but the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria( AMCON) say it has only received $3.2 million.

“A registered Nigerian company with one banker as alter ego, was engaged by AMCON in June 2011 to provide legal services for the sale of the assets,” said the fact sheet.

“A UK-based lawyer was given the power of attorney which was notarized in Dubai.

“Findings indicated that the attorney engaged allegedly received over $7million but about $4,522,413.20 remained unaccounted for. The EFCC detectives discovered that AMCON only received $3,278,238.69 from the proceeds of the sale of the assets.”

The anti-graft agency was also quoted to have said investigation showed some of the proceeds of the sales were wired from Dubai into the accounts of “some individuals and companies”.

“The EFCC team has interacted with four officials of AMCON including a former staff, the ex-head of the transactions, who is now with a bank.

“More officials of some banks have been invited to come and give us information on third party accounts where the proceeds were deposited.”