A hospital with modern medical equipment valued at $2.15m, seized from a former Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu (retd.), has been given to the Nigerian Air Force by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC that confiscated the property on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
A source at the EFCC told the Punch that the EFCC could not manage the property and therefore decided to hand it over to the Nigerian Air Force medical unit.
He said, “The hospital has very expensive equipment including an MRI machine which is very rare. However, we could not manage the hospital so we handed it over to the air force pending the outcome of Amosu’s trial. It is assumed that the money used in buying the hospital was stolen from the air force.”
Other properties seized from Amosu included a house on Adeyemo Alakija Street, GRA Ikeja worth N250m; a duplex at House 11, Peace Court Estate, GRA Ikeja worth N110m; a N40m property located at NAF Harmony Estate, Asokoro base; a five-bedroomed house at Valley NAF Estate, Port Harcourt, worth N33m and a N95m house on Umaru Dikko Street, Jabi.
The Federal Government has also initiated moves to confiscate Amosu’s house at 50 Tenterden Grove, NW41TH, London, valued at £2m.
Amosu and a former Chief of Accounts and Budgeting in NAF, Air Vice Marshal Jacob Adigun (retd.), and a former Director of Finance and Budget, Air Commodore Olugbenga Gbadebo (retd.), are facing trial before a Federal High Court for allegedly stealing N22.8bn from the coffers of the Nigerian Air Force between 2014 and 2015.
The Newspaper reports that the EFCC has seized 33 properties they allegedly bought with stolen funds.
Apart from the hospital, the EFCC had seized plazas, schools, mansions, farms and a quarry from Amosun, Adigun and Gbadebo.
Also N2.835bn cash had been recovered from Amosu alone, Gbadebo returned N190m, while Adigun’s wife, also returned money.
Properties recovered from Adigun were worth N9.6bn.
The cash and assets which the air force men would forfeit permanently, add up to about N15bn which is more than three quarters of what they allegedly stole.
They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Interestingly, Nigerian Air Force money was not good enough to build a good hospital to cater for the men and women of the service while Amosun was in charge. But, if the charges are proven, good to build himself a state-of-the-art hospital.
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