The Abia State government has sealed a property located at No.40 Ekenna Street, GRA, Aba, allegedly transferred by the immediate past administration to a former Commissioner for Transport in the state, Chief Godswill Nwonoruo.
The government also sealed another property located at No.1 Alex Onyeado Close, Aba, which was formerly a state veterinary office, allegedly transferred to a former deputy governor in the state.
General Manager, Greater Aba Development Authority, GADA, Mr. Uche Ukeje, said that the property at Ekenna street, now renamed, ‘Corpus Lodge’, was transferred to the former Commissioner on 29th April 2023, through a certificate of occupancy,C of O, after the winner of the 2023 general election, had been declared.
Ukeje explained that the immediate past administration recovered the property at Ekenna Street from Church Gate Holdings, which was part of Abia State partners in Aba Textile Mills.
He further stated that the immediate past administration handed it over to the Abia State Advertisement and Signage Agency, ABSAA. The property was, however, transferred on April 29, 2023, to the ex-Transport Commissioner, who was a former consultant to the agency.
On the property at Alex Onyeado Close, Ukeje also stated that the site formerly hosted the veterinary office headquarters in Aba before it was transferred to private ownership.
He disclosed that the state government had mapped the site for an industrial court instead of allowing a private individual to retain it.
He said; “We discovered that as part of the process of looking into what had happened in the near past within the state government, the former consultant to ABSAA, who is also the former commissioner for Transport, had through a C of O, dated 29th April,2023, after the elections were over and winner declared, converted a public asset to his private property. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that the fidelity of the state assets is protected and that assets belonging to the state do not find their way into private hands, especially through a process that is not transparent.
“On the property at Onyeado Close, if you have lived long enough in Aba, that property at Onyeado Close used to be a veterinary office which was transferred to private ownership. The state needs it for the Industrial Court. We hope that it will be put to public use instead of transferring it to private ownership.
“As part of the review process that is not political, the process of recovering public assets that have been transferred to private ownership has commenced in the state.”
Source: Vanguard.
