The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA) has described claims in an anonymous write-up going round on WhatsApp platforms that a certain former Chairman/CEO of the Agency sold off its headquarters office buildings in Ikoyi, Lagos, leaving officers and men stranded, as a total distortion of facts.
Femi Babafemi, the Agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy said in a statement that the said served as its National Headquarters before the Agency’s relocation to Abuja some years ago.
He further pointed out that a Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) on Federal Government Landed Properties took over the buildings in question following a government directive that all vacated or underutilised government properties be taken over by the PIC, sold and proceeds paid to the federal government coffers.
“At the time of relocation, 70% of the Agency’s headquarters staff moved to Abuja while the remaining 30% are still in Shaw Road office, Ikoyi. This remaining 30% will soon join the main headquarters in Abuja as soon as the new headquarters building, recently bought by the federal government for the Agency, is ready for occupation”.
Mr Babafemi stressed that like other federal government agencies whose properties were taken over by the PIC, NDLEA has no hand in the sale of the said properties and does not know who bought them and for how much, as the presidential committee solely handled the sale.
“The challenge before the Agency at the moment is how to remove our officers and men who live within communities where they are exposed to dangers into secure barracks accommodation, a concern already being addressed by the federal government through budgetary provisions for the construction of such barracks across the country beginning from this year”, the statement made available to Eighteen-Eleven Media read in part.
He, therefore, urged members of the public to disregard the anonymous write-up which he said is nothing but an embodiment of distortion and mischief.