EFCC seizes N14.6bn jewelry, houses worth $80m from ex-minister Diezani

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has seized jewellery worth N14 billion from former Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Allison-Madueke.

The EFCC Chairman, Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, made this known at the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the assessment and status of recovered loot on Friday in Abuja.

He also said that the Houses seized from the former Minister are also valued at $80 million.

The anti-graft chairman said that Diezani’s jewelry are still in the custody of the agency, adding that it had not been auctioned but had been finally forfeited to the Federal Government.

He said that court processes, procedures, and administrative exigencies had stalled some of the seized assets to be auctioned by the anti-graft agency.

Bawa however said that the agency would henceforth deal with the seized assets case by case at the courts in order to quickly dispose of them.

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“Already the Federal Government has set up a committee under the chairmanship of the Solicitor-General for the Federation and I think they are working tirelessly.

“We have EFCC representatives from that committee and we believe at the end of the day Nigerians are going to appreciate what that committee will come out with within the term of the mandate given to them,” he said.

Bawa also confirmed that he was not a member of the committee to know how soon the assets were going to be disposed of.

He said that there was no loot that had been re-looted as been speculated, stressing that going forward, the EFCC would be different and Nigerians would be the better for it.

He said that he would always honoured the National Assembly to account for what the agency had done, adding that public servants come and go but the institution would remain.

By Mayowa Oladeji

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