Abuja Media Circle

A former Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko, has returned N1,040,000, 000 to the Federal Government, The Punch has learnt. A reliable source within the EFCC told Punch that the suspect had been returning money to the government. The source added, “So far, Dikko has returned over N1bn. He returned N1bn and then N4m. He is still expected to return more money.” It would be recalled that Dikko served as the head of customs between August, 2009 and August, 2015 and became the subject of an EFCC investigation last year when the commission established that about N40bn was diverted from the coffers of the NCS under his watch.

EFCC has seized a filling station and a shopping complex from a man who described himself as a building engineer, Abdullahi Rilwan, for failing to explain where he got the money to buy the properties. The EFCC Act Section 71 (b) gives the commission 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. The EFCC said in a statement by its spokesman, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, on Thursday, that Rilwan was also arrested for offences bordering on operating a land racketeering syndicate, criminal conspiracy, unlawful possession of classified documents, obtaining by false pretences and money laundering. According to the commission, the suspect was first accosted in the Kuje Area Council of Abuja during a separate investigation into the $2.1bn arms procurement fraud. Detectives were said to have visited the area to verify the ownership of several properties suspected to be...