MINISTER FOR NIGER DELTA HAS FIVE UNDECLARED ABUJA PROPERTIES.

The Anti-Corruption Network yesterday claimed that it has uncovered five landed property newly acquired by Niger Delta Minister Godsday Orubebe within three years in Abuja. Executive Secretary of the group, Dino Melaye, showed purported documents to prove this allegation to newsmen in Abuja yesterday, but Daily Trust could not immediately verify authenticity of the documents. Melaye said a construction company built a mansion for the minister less than six months after the company received a contract to build part of a highway in the Niger Delta. Melaye claimed that some of the five properties owned by the minister were not declared to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB). “Elder Orubebe as a minister in the last three years has been acquiring choice properties in highbrow locations in Abuja. One of the properties with certificate of occupancy for Plot 2722, Kyami District in Abuja. The plot contains 1883.63 square meters. Another is Plot 2460 in Maitama, Plot 1736 in the Guzape area of Abuja in which certificate of occupancy was issued in 2008 and another Plot 2057 in Asokoro,” he said. He called on President Jonathan to demonstrate his seriousness in the anti-corruption crusade by sacking Orubebe. Efforts to reach Niger Delta Ministry’s spokesman Fidelis Usamo for comments failed. He neither picked his calls nor responded to text a message sent to his phone yesterday. Reacting to the call by the Melaye group for the demolition of Orubebe’s property, FCT Minister’s spokesperson, Jamila Tangaza, said the “FCT Development Control is a competent department of the FCT authority. They do not need any self-appointed group to tell them what structures to demolish or otherwise.”