Sale of FG Houses: Senate Committee moves to nail el-Rufai

Taiwo Adisa, Abuja - 06.04.2008

THE Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), headed by Senator Abubakar Danso Sodangi, may have narrowed its probe of the sale of Federal Government Houses to the tenure of the immediate past Minister, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.

Contrary to claims by the Committee that the probe set to take off on Wednesday is not targeted at the tenure of Mallam el-Rufai, a letter written by the committee Chairman, to the incumbent Minister of FCT, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar indicated that el-Rufai is actually under probe.

The letter dated March 13 2008, and which was a follow up to a first letter dated March 6, 2008, intimated the Minister of the whole purport of the Senate committee probe.

Signed by the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Sodangi, the letter gave details of the documents and information the committee expected from the Minister of FCT, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar.

All questions relating to the probe raised in the letter centered around the activities of el-Rufai in office. For instance, the Senate Committee asked questions about the engagement of Mr. Jimi Lawal, an associate of El-Rufai, who was linked with collection of revenue in the FCT.

In the four -page letter, no question was raised about the tenure of the two other Ministers of FCT,who were in office ahead of el-Rufai- Engineer Bunu Sheriff Musa and Alhaji Abba Gana. The subheads in the letter by Sodangi also clearly gave the direction of the probe.

There is the question about sale of government houses, demolition of houses, revocation of landed properties, and concessioning of government assets, all of which happened under el-Rufai’s tenure.

The letter read in part: “Further to our letter reference number NASS/S/CFCT/01/07 of 6th March 2008, the Committee has noted that the responses so far received do not comprehensively and adequately address the salient issues. The Honourable Minister may therefore wish to direct the relevant officials concerned to address their submissions to the underlisted specifics.

“We specifically require the Honourable minister’s response to the following questions supported with evidence.” The specifics listed in the letter include, the sale of Federal Government properties, compensations Concessioning, Abuja Mass Transit and Aso Savings, all of which have to do with the tenure of Mallam el-Rufai.

Some of the questions raised by the committee include; how many houses of the FCT were sold? How many houses of other Ministries and Agencies were sold? Who bought them? How were they advertised? For how much? How much was realized? How many civil servants were ejected for failing to pay in full? How many court cases do you have? How many court orders were disobeyed?

Questions were also asked on the concessioning of Garki General Hospital, the Abuja Gardens, Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja, and the operations of Aso Savings.

The Committee asked the minister to provide answers to who got the hospital, the hotels and for what conditions as well as the shareholders of Aso Savings and loans, through which most of the Federal Government Houses in Abuja were sold.