‘Dikko, Nigeria’s former Comptroller-General of Customs Service Squandered N40billion’-EFCC
…He’s Guilty of EFCC Act Section 71 (b), Sections 28,29,38 of Nigerian Constitution
* ‘Why We Confiscate Dikko’s Abuja Mansion worth N2billion’
* ‘I Didn’t Steal, But Returned over N1 billion Cash to Anti-graft agency’-Abdullahi Dikko
* Claims: ‘I Am Suffering Poor Health Condition’
BY RILWAN MOHAMMED/ANTI-GRAFT WRITER, ABUJA
JUDGEMENT day has come knocking on the door of Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko, a former Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service ( NCS) found to have looted the nation for a period of six years between August, 2009 and August, 2015, and lived life like a king, with choice houses bought in United Arab Emirates (UAE), United Kingdom and Katsina, his home state.
After a painstaking and thorough investigation, Nigeria’s leading anti-graft agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) revealed that indeed Dikko is not innocent of money laundering and stealing charges leveled against him, since a huge sum of N40billion was found to have developed wings under his direct account supervision.
He earlier played ‘hide-and-seek’ since last year, but was arrested, while investigation then began. He signed to return the alleged stolen funds, so far he has secretly been returning varying sums of money. But the commission was shocked to have witnessed Dikko returned the sum of N1billion in cash at once.
An EFCC security source explained that “Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko has returned N1,040,000, 000 to the Federal Government. Dikko, who served as the head of customs between August, 2009 and August, 2015, became the subject of our EFCC investigation last year when the commission established that about N40bn was diverted from the coffers of the NCS under his watch. The funds were allegedly drawn from proceeds of the seven per cent cost of collection and one per cent comprehensive import supervision scheme. He was subsequently arrested by the EFCC in June this year but was released due to his poor health. We can assure you that the suspect had been returning money to the government. So far, Dikko has returned over N1billion. He returned N1billion and then N4million. He is still expected to return more money.”
The EFCC had, earlier in the year, seized a mansion belonging to Dikko located at 1 Audu Ogbeh Street, Jabi, Abuja, which according to real-estate valuers is worth at least N2billion. On the property is an inscription: ‘EFCC, Keep Off!’ painted all over the fence.
This EFCC source said, “Going by the EFCC Act Section 71 (b) which gives us the power to commence investigations into the property of any person if it appears to the EFCC that the person’s lifestyle and extent of properties are not justified by law, we are still investigating Dikko for looting NCS.
“Section 28 says concerning those arrested under the Act, the commission will immediately trace and attach all the assets and seizures of such a person which have been acquired. Section 29 permits the assets of a person arrested under Section 28 to be seized by the state. Dikko was a customs officer and served for about 30 years. He has to explain where he got the money to buy a mansion of N2bn. How much was his annual salary?”