‘Unoccupied houses now used to hide laundered money’

Securing immovable assets seems a challenge these days of insurgency. What has been your experience?Before the insurgency proper, there had been security challenges like theft, breaking and entry and in-house crime organization and commission. We discourage people from raising high fences round their property because the disadvantage is, when things are happening, neighbours can hardly […]

Securing immovable assets seems a challenge these days of insurgency. What has been your experience?
Before the insurgency proper, there had been security challenges like theft, breaking and entry and in-house crime organization and commission. We discourage people from raising high fences round their property because the disadvantage is, when things are happening, neighbours can hardly see into your compound to help. If you have low fences and are perforated, when you’re held hostage in your compound, people can see from outside and then call the police. That’s why in western and developed nations, you see low fences perforated so people can see through. That’s why it’s easy for them to call on the police when they see strange movement in the property next to them.
Second, when people hire domestic servants, they need do a background checks on them. Go to agencies that hire these people because they would have collated data and they will have references and sureties that they can access easily. People recruit a man and have him at the gate, they don’t know them . These are people that pass information within and outside the property.

There’s this phenomenon of so many empty houses in a situation whereas there are so many rent seekers. Have you ever given a thought to this?
Apparently, there’re several reasons for empty houses — the high rent. Most of the houses are in highbrow areas and then you have over 60 percent of Abuja residents as civil servants that can’t afford to pay for these houses.
Another one is money that can’t be taken to bank is laundered and then legitimized. People take such money to buy property instead of taking such money to the bank.
And then some of the houses serve as vaults. You see a house To Let, For Sale for years and then you begin to wonder. Then you see renovations take place in these houses and the rubble packed out of the houses in trucks. I asked one of the workers some day. He told me they brought a door to fix…I had access into the property and I was curious because while the property was under renovation or construction, there was this high fence done with iron sheets and the security strict instruction – nobody comes in if they’re no workers and there were places workers could not go.
I went and asked one of the guys who was supposed to work for me – I said what’s happening. I saw a door — I knew it’s a bullet proof. What’s the door for? A door that should not be ordinarily used for residential accommodation, I saw that one side was smaller than the other. I asked him where the door would be fixed. He showed me the place that was fortified – a concrete reinforcement wall. My deduction was that this is a vault. I tried to come back again to see what was happening and I saw that it was completed. When I asked, I was told that so far, this particular architect is an expert in building stuff like this. They had done three in Abuja – one in Asokoro, Wuse II and Maitama.
This begins to create ideas of what these buildings are for. That particular building was for sale for years. Money is being stashed. Of course, this isn’t strange to security agencies. Money is kept in boxes in banks not to be reflected as deposit. Security agencies should look properly into houses that are declared to be for sale, to let – why are these houses staying for too long, why aren’t they being sold? Who’s selling and who’s buying because it has gone beyond financial crimes – it’s now property crime. That’s the trend in the city.

Do you mean some property put for sale don’t really mean to sell?
Don’t mean to sell because I had an experience. The house was to be sold. How much? N150 million! They guy made an offer of N130 million. The owner said N150 million. The guy accepted the price tag of N150 million and the man said he was out of the city. Later he said a valuer came to say this house should be sold for N200 million. The guy made offer of N180 million. I advised the guy to match the N200 million. He said it wasn’t for sale. The next time we were told the house was sold.
After three months, I passed by and I saw For Sale on the house and I began to wonder. I wondered: so these houses are just there, these tags For Sale, To Let are a mirage. The intent isn’t for the property to be sold.

We have a new government and we’re suggesting new order. What should government do?
Government should look into activities of developers because that is the conduit through which these corrupt politicians use as fronts to channel their funds. Who’re these estate developers? At what point did they start business? And at what point did their account so shot up into billions of naira?
Transactions can be traced. You started estate agency or you started developing property, suddenly you got land and where did you get the initial loan to start building? How much did you collect? And suddenly you have N2 billion, you have N3 billion in your account. You’re now building other estates all over.