Ikoyi Cash: Other whistleblowers take battle for commission to court

The group claiming that they originally gave the EFCC the top-off that led to the recovery of billions stashed in a luxury apartment at Ikoyi, Lagos, early in the year have gone a step further by going to court to halt the payment of N890 million to the initial whistleblower the commission identified.

Abdulmumin Musa, Stephen Sunday and Bala Usman say they approached the EFCC in Lagos in December 2016 and informed the agency about the N13 billion which the National Intelligence Agency claimed it kept for “covert operations” .

The EFCC and the finance ministry earlier said another whistleblower was on the verge of being paid a commission for the operation.

In a lawsuit filed on November 22 at the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, the three sought immediate suspension of payments to anyone else but themselves.

According to PR Nigeria, lawyers to the group wrote to Attorney-General Abubakar Malami in August, accused the EFCC of shortchanging the whistleblowers by bringing in others from the fringe of the whistle blowing.

ALSO SEE: My life is in danger, cries Ikoyi whistleblower

The lawyers wrote that upon subsequent visit to give a detailed information as required by the commission to raid the tower, their clients were told if the operation was successful, 5% of the amount recovered will be their take home within 72 hours of recovery.

“They were also cautioned that if the information happened to be false, then they will definitely be in trouble which the three mentioned above accepted because they were sure of their facts”.

The petitioners said as the raid was successful, some of the EFCC staff told them they were not the only people who gave them information on the Ikoyi Tower.

The Head of EFCC operations, Samaila Muhammed, was said to have told them the numbers of the whistleblowers have increased to nine.

The first whistleblower is taking psychiatric therapy now as federal government believes he has to be stable mentally before he gets the commission of N890 million.

His counsel Yakubu Galadima has been screaming blue murder over the delay in paying the bounty.