Business
Mixed feelings trail arrest of Judges as DSS release them on bail
The seven judges, who were arrested on Friday and Saturday by the Department of State Services, have been released on bail.
A source in the DSS, who confided in The PUNCH on Monday evening, said the judges were released on own recognisance on Sunday.
The DSS source said, “They were all released on bail yesterday (Sunday) on own recognisance. They reported this morning (Monday) and they have all gone back home. They will be coming back tomorrow (Tuesday); and everything went very procedurally well and civil.
“They were released on bail on own recognisance based on the fact that given their standing in the society, they cannot run away. They were instructed that they should come back today (Monday) by 10am. They did report for investigation this morning (Monday morning) and they have gone back home.
“The investigation continues and preparation to charge them to court.
“Also, the action was sequel to the lack of cooperation by the National Judicial Council such as the refusal by the NJC to allow the affected persons to be questioned by the DSS. Investigation started some seven months ago, precisely in April 2016.”
A top judiciary officer in Abuja, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the judges had been released.
But calls to the mobile of one of the judges did not go through.
The DSS had, in what it called a sting operation, arrested Sylvester Ngwuta and Inyang Okoro, both of the Supreme Court; the suspended Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, Ilorin Division, Justice Mohammed Tsamiya; Justice Kabiru Auta of the Kano State High Court and Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
Others arrested were the sacked Chief Judge of Enugu State, Justice I. A. Umezulike, and Muazu Pindiga of the Federal High Court, Gombe Division.
However, the DSS on Monday, intensified its ongoing investigation of two Justices of the Supreme Court and other judges arrested over the weekend after simultaneous raids on their homes.
Top sources in the Federal Ministry of Justice confided in one of our correspondents on Monday that the DSS had extended its ongoing probe of the arrested judiciary chiefs to the asset declaration forms they submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau.
The DSS had said it was getting the cooperation of the Federal Ministry of Justice in its ongoing probe of the judges.
Credible sources in the ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the probe, confirmed to The PUNCH that the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation was involved in the ongoing investigation.
The sources, one of whom visited the DSS office in Abuja on Monday, said the Service had placed requests for the asset declaration forms submitted by the judges to the CCB.
The source added, “As of today, the ministry is still obtaining statements from the judiciary officers.
“You will recall that apart from the raw cash recovered from the judges, documents relating to the assets linked to some of the Justices were also recovered from their houses.
“So, since it has to do with assets, the DSS thought it wise to place request to the CCB for their asset declaration forms.
“We should be able to compare the forms they submitted to the CCB and the evidence of the ownership of the assets linked to them.”
The Head of Protocol and Publicity Unit of the CCB, Mr. Muhammed Idris, could not be reached for his comment on the DSS request to the bureau on Monday.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justices of the Supreme Court and those of the Court of Appeal as well as other judicial officers are, under Paragraph II of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, expected to declare their assets and liabilities to the CCB periodically.
Paragraph 11 of the Part II of the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution reads, “11.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, every public officer shall within three months after the coming into force of this Code of Conduct or immediately after taking office and thereafter— (a) at the end of every four years ; and (b) at the end of his term of office, submit to the Code of Conduct Bureau a written declaration of all his properties, assets, and liabilities and those of his unmarried children under the age of eighteen years.
“(2) Any statement in such declaration that is found to be false by any authority or person authorised on that behalf to verify it shall be deemed to be a breach of this code.
“(3) Any property or assets acquired by a public officer after any declaration required under this Constitution and which is not fairly attributable to income, gift or loan approved by this code shall be deemed to have been acquired in breach of this code unless the contrary is proved.”
One of our correspondents, on Monday, obtained a copy of the petition sent to the AGF’s office linking Justice Okoro of the Supreme Court to some suspicious properties in his home state of Akwa Ibom.
The petition was forwarded by the AGF to the DSS in August.
A letter from the AGF’s office to the DSS stated, “Investigation privately carried out by Akwa Ibom activist and legal practitioner, and which he generously availed me, shows that Honourable Justice Okoro has suddenly acquired stupendous wealth, which he has used to develop massive estates in Calabar, Cross River State, and Uyo in Akwa Ibom State, which is inconsistent with his status as a Justice of the Supreme Court.
“These estates, which Honourable Justice Okoro recently acquired are as follows:
“A maisonette at Plot 6, Unit S-G, Ewet Housing Estate, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
“Block of flats at Fanama Street, Off Ategong Drive, Calabar, Cross River State, built by Marilyn and Costa, and
“A maisonette at Shelter Afrique, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, to mention but a few.”
Meanwhile, there were indications on Monday that the judges might be arraigned before a Magistrate’s Court, Life Camp, Abuja, any moment from now.
Journalists and some lawyers, who had anticipated that the detained judges might be arraigned on Monday, converged on the premises of the court at about 11am.
But they later dispersed at about 5pm after it was evident that the arraignment would no longer take place.
Judges of the Federal High Court in Abuja, whose colleague, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, was among the judges arrested during the weekend, did not sit on Monday.
One of the judges confirmed to The PUNCH that they could not sit because they were in bad mood due to the weekend incident.
The trial of a former Governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, that was supposed to come up before Justice Ademola on Monday was stalled.
Also, the ongoing trial of the immediate past Chief of Air Staff, Alex Badeh, for money laundering was part of a number of cases that ought to come up before Justice Okon Abang, but could not proceed.
However, since the case came up, it has been trailed with mixed feelings with some in support of the invasion and many against it describing it as a threat to democracy.
- Punch
NNPCL and Corruption’s Final Throes
By Pius Olasanmi
In the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, when Nigerians were still capable of being outraged, when Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of refineries was a buzzword that still held some mysticism to bamboozle citizens, during a conversation, a certain man said something profound. The man said, “As a businessman, if I were the owner of these refineries, knowing that they are three decades old, I would take the last money I have, hire bulldozers, raze them to the ground, and obtain loans to build new ones.”
When we pressed him further on why he would engage in such waste, he explained that repairing the refineries is the real waste. He explained that even if the TAM were honestly carried out, a thirty-year-old refinery would never compete favourably with a new one that would integrate contemporary technology. Operating at its best, such a refinery would never be comparatively more efficient. It is therefore pointless to have spent another one naira on the refineries at that point.
A few months later, I had a conversation with a then-lawmaker on an entirely different matter. I mentioned that the National Assembly has failed by not crafting legislation that would criminalise and punish public office holders who foist wrong decisions on the country. The logic: a public office holder need not steal to be punished, wrong decisions should attract penalties for an office holder who opts for the worst of all options when there are less injurious ones.
These established premises speak to the ongoing nauseating efforts at revisionism by those who wrecked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its previous iteration, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Notably, this campaign to rewrite history is traceable to Engineer Mele Kolo Kyari, the disgraced immediate past Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL and his hirelings. They have suffocated the news and the public opinion space with even more lies than they spun while in office.
The Saint Kyari campaign is anchored on convincing Nigerians that the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna Refineries were fully functional when he was booted out of office. So brazen is the campaign that one of its talking heads challenged the group chief executive officer (GCEO), Engr. Bayo Ojulari, to “inform Nigerians categorically what happened to the functioning refineries he inherited from his predecessor, Engr. Mele Kyari.” The effrontery.
We have not forgotten so soon the charade that followed the baffling claim that Nigeria has spent $2.8 billion on the repair of the refineries, while they are not churning out even a single litre of refined product among them. Saint Kyari and his goons played all manner of tricks, all of which embarrassed President Bola Tinubu, who had counted on ticking off the return to productivity of the refineries as part of his achievements, only to realise that he was deceived into celebrating phantoms. Tragic.
Lest we forget, 200 trucks were arranged as props in a well-directed video clip to celebrate the re-streaming of the Port Harcourt Refinery. The disappointment. Nigerians were to learn from several reports that the Port Harcourt refinery was not producing and was instead using old, stored petroleum products to load trucks. Worse still, the Kyari crew was passing off sanction-tainted Russian-sourced crude oil refined in Malta as locally refined products. More insult was piled on the assault on our collective sensibility with the lies that the Port Harcourt Refinery exported semi-finished products. Brazen.
Meanwhile, Kyari and his hirelings called those who pointed out or protested these glaring scams all manner of names. They hid behind industry technicalities and jargon to create the impression that those of us who knew Nigerians were being robbed did not understand what we were saying. The point remains that a $2.8 billion investment can potentially build a refinery with a capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). Of course, the actual capacity of such a refinery will depend on various factors, including the complexity of the refinery, the technology used, and the location. That is the amount that Kyari’s regime at the NNPCL took and did not give Nigerians refined products.
Fast forward to Kyari’s sack and the appointment of Engineer Bayo Ojulari, who has demonstrated that things can indeed be done differently. Kyari’s exit was expectedly followed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) going after him and his associates. The extent of the theft is better understood against the backdrop of N80 billion being found in the bank account of one of his associates. They went on the run.
Perhaps because the EFCC was biding its time on securing international warrants for the arrests of these characters on the lam, they have become emboldened. They have decided to fight back and rewrite the story of their participation in the greatest fraud against Nigerians. Engineer Ojulari’s renewed mindset, which is entrenching a semblance of the transparency Nigerians demand, became their natural target. The demons that once roamed around the corporation came out with malevolence. They started spinning stories of corruption to tarnish the incumbent who refused to hide their crimes. The objective: bring Ojulari down. But alas, he is winning the war as it stands.
His innocence is proven, and it is glaring that those who want him out are mere charlatans who can no longer ply their corrupt wares because of the impact of the new reforms. Corruption in the NNPCL is in its final throes. The fake news being unleashed against the incumbent leadership is akin to corruption’s last kicks as reforms in the sector strangulate it and its practitioners. The reforms must take place in the NNPCL, whether the industry demons like it or not.
As a parting shot, Kyari and his associates would do well to prepare their defence. In addition to accounting for the $2.8 billion they laundered in the name of repairing the moribund refineries, they must also answer for the poor decision to fix that which is irretrievably broken. Awarding contracts for Turn Around Maintenance of 59-year-old refineries that a right-thinking person had suggested should be demolished almost twenty years ago, when they were only 30 years old, is criminal. Trying to deceive Nigerians that the fake repairs worked is treason.
Olasanmi is a public affairs analyst writing from Lagos.
GRANDIS 5STAR LUXURY APARTMENT & SUITES SET TO REDEFINE LIVING IN VICTORIA ISLAND
Set to Rise elegantly against the Lagos skyline, is the Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites. According to Adejuwon Ademola, The General Manager of the Development company, it is more than just a residential building
“it’s a lifestyle statement. Standing 17 floors high in the heart of Victoria Island, this revolutionary masterpiece of modern architecture will offer a panoramic 360° view of Eko Atlantic, Victoria Island, and Ikoyi, transforming every apartment into an exclusive penthouse experience for the world’s most discerning elite.”
Developed by Dumarco Construction Limited, a globally acclaimed company with decades of delivering complex, high-value projects in the highly regulated petroleum, oil, and gas industries, Grandis 5Star brings unmatched international safety standards, uncompromising quality, and timeless elegance into Nigeria’s luxury property market.
> “When you live in Grandis, you’re not just buying a home—you’re investing in peace of mind, world-class safety, and an effortless luxury experience that will remain pristine for decades,” says Adejuwon A. Ademola, General Manager of Dumarco Construction Limited.
The Gold Standard in Safety and Quality
Dumarco’s roots in the oil and gas sector mean the company operates to some of the strictest safety protocols in the world. Every stage—from conceptualization, design, construction, to long-term maintenance—follows internationally accepted procedures and quality assurance measures. Cutting corners is simply not in Dumarco’s vocabulary.
> “In the oil and gas industry, there’s no room for compromise. We’ve brought that same discipline and zero-tolerance for mediocrity into property development,” says Ademola. “That’s why Grandis will be one of the safest and most enduring residential developments in Nigeria.”
To ensure transparency and prevent (project complacency), Dumarco deliberately separates the developer, contractor, and consultant roles, engaging only the most competent professionals in each respective field. Dumarco’s project team includes globally recognized contractors such as Julius Berger, Cappa & D’Alberto, and Elalan, Migliore Construczione & Tecniche (MC&T) and their partners VENCO IMTIAZ CONTRACTING COMPANY (VICC) based in Dubai, UAE, Business Contracting Limited, alongside leading consultants like Morgan Omanitan & Abe, LAMBERT, and James Cubitt.
Grandis – Investments, appreciation, returns and profitability
Our selection process for the location of the project alone was pains-taking and completely thorough scientific process. Top professional companies were employed to conduct a scientific data acquisition and analytical survey of the entire Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki and Eko Atlantic before a project site is selected. Analyzing and acquiring areas developmental charts and trends, studying and gathering historical and present sale prices, rental charge and occupancy rates over a 50 year period from every individual street before the selection of the location of any of our developments especially true for the Grandis Project
He adds,
“Our clients and residents can be rest assured that the location of Grandis has been scientifically proven through all existing data to provide our clients with a 100% occupancy rate, highest developmental location, highest rental income and investment returns. ”
The Grandis Experience
Located minutes away from international corporate headquarters, embassies, and landmarks such as Eko Hotel, Radisson Blu, and the Radisson Red, Grandis offers unmatched convenience for professionals, diplomats, and high-net-worth individuals. Every residence is designed for both indulgence and efficiency, with high-grade finishes, smart-home systems, and private amenities that ensure seamless living.
From sunrise over the Atlantic to the glittering Lagos night skyline, residents will enjoy uninterrupted luxury, supported by discreet and highly trained staff, advanced security systems, and a design that prioritizes comfort and privacy.
> “We designed Grandis for people who want everything—security, elegance, convenience, and the assurance that their home will look as spectacular in 20 years as it does on day one,” Ademola notes.
A Legacy That Lasts
With its combination of visionary architecture, peerless safety, and meticulous maintenance planning, Grandis is built to remain iconic for generations. Thanks to Dumarco’s meticulous approach, the building’s service charges are expected to remain low while its value and appeal continue to appreciate over time.
In a market often marred by shortcuts and substandard practices, Mr Ademola says
Grandis stands as a beacon of what luxury living should be—safe, spectacular, and built to last.
“Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites — Where safety meets sophistication, and every detail is designed for a life well-lived.”
He added
Website -www.dumarcoltd.com
Project website – www.26idowutaylor.com
Email [email protected]
Tel / WhatsApp +234 9077777883
GM – Adejuwon A. Ademola
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