Matilda Omonaiye/
Spirited efforts of the Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Dr Qasim Akinreti has led to a fresh recovery of N5million out of over N56million allegedly stolen from the council.
NewsmakersNG learnt that the money was recovered from the Council’s sacked estate manager, Mr Segun Opayemi.
Opayemi, who heads Epega & Co Estate Firm, was in charge of the Lagos NUJ property at Victoria Island which is known as Light House. He made an installment-payment agreement with NUJ to stop further legal proceedings on the matter.
A sum of N2million had earlier been recovered from the immediate past Lagos NUJ Council Chairman, Mr Deji Elumoye.
The loot recovery drive has also led to a full legal action against Mrs Ifeyinwa Omowole, the National Leader of Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) who is being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over a $530, 000 (N200, 081, 355) journalist housing scam known as Pen Jewel Housing Scheme.
Investigators have uncovered $227, 000 secretly and illegally withdrawn by Omowole from the NAWOJ project account with the United Bank for Africa (UBA) to which Elumoye had once testified in a petition to the National Secretariat.
Here is one of the tell-tale documents made available to NewsmakersNG:
According to Akinreti, the NUJ lawyer has commenced legal actions against the arrowheads of the alleged housing scam led by Omowole of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The money recovered from Opayemi, alongside other vital documents of the Light House property has been handed over to the council’s lawyer, Mr JIti Ogunye, after the solicitor acting on instructions from Akinreti threatened to take legal action against the sacked Estate Manager.
Earlier, an independent auditor engaged by the union, Mr Kolawole Adegbola in a document submitted to the Finance Committee of the Lagos NUJ headed by the Treasurer of the Union, Mrs Iyabo Ogunjuyigbe, had traced a sun of N56 Million unaccounted for to the Estate Manager.
Members of the financial committee included former Secretary of Lagos NUJ, Mr Biodun Akinbusuyi, the Publisher of The Lead magazine, Mr Ajibola Abayomi and others.
In the auditor’s report, a sum of N26 million was also traced to the personal account of Elumoye, while N20.6 million being the total money collected for perimeter fencing from Lagos Journalists could not be accounted for by the ex-chairman.
Out of the N26 million, Elumoye had repaid N2 million till date while the balance is pending.
The NUJ lawyer had also commenced legal fireworks at EFCC, against the arrowheads of the alleged housing scam led by Mrs Ifeyinwa Omowole of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), who allegedly collected over $530,000 from Lagos Journalists on the aborted project named Pen Juwel Housing Scheme.
At one of the probe sessions, Omowole, the current National Chairman of NAWOJ, claimed that a princely sum of $24000 expired, a comment that drew angry reactions from Lagos journalists.
Akinreti told NewsmakersNG that people linked to the fraud are working hard to stop his re-election and install a stooge that would bury the case.
Akinreti said that his opponents were canvassing a ‘political solution’ as a resolution to the Pen Jewel Housing scam.
Ogunye has, however, assured NUJ members that he would leave no stone unturned in his efforts to recover the stolen funds and get justice for the victims.
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