The former Clerk of the National Assembly, Ataba Sani Omolori has been accused by his younger brother, Buhari Sani Omolori of fraudulently selling off N7bn worth of properties belonging to the descendants of their father, the late Ohinoyi of Ebiraland, Alhaji Muhammed Sani Omolori.
Buhari made the allegations on Monday in an exclusive interview with the News Editor of thewhistler.ng, Tayo Olu.
Buhari in the interview, revealed that the Omolori family carried out investigations and found that the monarch’s eldest son, Ataba, allegedly stole original documents of the properties barely eight days after their father’s death and sold them without consulting his siblings or sharing the benefits with them.
He said no fewer than 12 offspring of the late monarch have died from illnesses that could have been treated if they were financially afloat or their legitimate inheritances had not been taken away from them.
Their late father was the Ohinoyi of Ebiraland and the Chairman of Ebira Traditional Council from 1956 to 1996. The monarch died about 26 years ago.
THE WHISTLER reported in 2021 that the children of the late monarch had filed a petition before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) seeking investigations into how a briefcase containing original documents of their late father’s properties was stolen days after his death.
Some of the properties are said to be located in the Maitama, Katampe, and Mabushi districts of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Buhari said when the family first discovered that Ataba was in possession of the documents, the family reached out to him to amicably resolve how to share the properties amongst the beneficiaries of the late monarch.
“We wrote some letters within the family concerning the properties, in which we reached out to (one of) our eldest brothers, Alhaji Isah.
“Then he told us that all these properties, especially the ones in Abuja, were in the hands of Ataba (Mohammed Ataba Sani-Omolori) who was the Clerk of the National Assembly and our eldest brother.
“He (Alhaji Isah) said he had reached out to him in the past that he should bring the properties so that they can be shared and he (Ataba) said he was holding it for the family. His response is even documented in a letter but it is being kept within the family. So, after this, he became very dodgy and at this point, we had not seen the documents.”
Buhari, however, recalled going through “our father’s stuff and I saw his papers about his landed properties and all of that. I made it clear that I’ve seen these properties (and) said that If anyone knows anything about this property, such a person should let us know because we were going to investigate.
“So, in the course of investigations, everything was linked to him (Ataba). Then we held a family meeting sometime in November last year (2021). In the family, one of our brothers was working with AGIS (Abuja Geographic Information System) and somebody said look, tell us what happened. The one in AGIS now said that look, these properties were owned by our father at some point but our brother, Ciroma (Ataba), who was the Clerk of the National Assembly, has sold them and they’ve passed from one hand to another. This was in a meeting in November last year,” he said.
