The red line war between the former Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the Kwara State government is getting messier as the government last weekend set up a panel to retrieve no fewer than 90 properties from the former Senate President and others.
The AbdulRazaq-led administration has designated a former Chief Judge of the state, Raliat Elelu-Habeeb, as Chairperson of the committee to retrieve the properties.
Elelu-Habeeb, according to a reliable source, was sacked during the administration of Saraki in 2009, but the Supreme Court reinstated her on February 18, 2012.
Speaking on the latest move by the state government to retrieve the said properties, the State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, as quoted by The Eagle Online, confirmed that the properties were owned by the state but converted to personal use by Saraki and others.
AbdulRazaq said the 90 properties, built with public funds, were allegedly unlawfully appropriated by some officials of the past administration.
He said the development underpins the impunity with which the state was almost run aground.
The properties were those uncovered by a committee AbdulRazaq set up to probe the handling of public assets since 1999.
The outcome of the work of the committee, headed by Senator Sulaiman Ajadi, is to be implemented by another committee to be chaired by a former Chief Judge of the State, Raliat Elelu-Habeeb.
AbdulRazaq said: “The (Senator Ajadi) committee did a very good job.
“They submitted two reports and we’re waiting for the final report.
“It is unfortunate that from my little reading of it so far, people just shared government property as if it was their fiefdom.
“They did not even think for one second that it was government property.
“For example, you give property to Harmony Holdings to invest on behalf of the state as trust and those in Harmony Holdings just shared the properties among themselves, even selling below the valuation prices.
“Even those in government did the same thing.
“There is a new layout called New GRA. None of them went there to build new houses because it was cheaper to pick government houses for next to nothing rather than build their own houses.
“We will look at the recommendations. In fact, some of them just live in those houses without paying anything, while most of them only started paying after the election was won and lost to the extent that the state government does not have enough accommodation to accommodate dignitaries and traditional rulers from other states to host them rather than putting them in the hotel.
“That’s how they shared the property and we are looking at more than 90 properties which they carved out for themselves.
“We’ll go back to the report of the panel and make sure the proper thing is done.”
The Kwara State Government had last week demolished the structure on the land Saraki’s father and former Senate Leader, late Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki, allegedly illegally acquired years back.
Saraki had taken over the running of the property, known as ‘Ile Arugbo’, after the demise of his fath