By Our Correspondent

The Senior Special Adviser to Governor Ifeayin Okowa on Economic Matters, Chief Olori Magege has stated that the Federal Government should take only 2% of the recovered loot as Service Charge for facilitating the recovery and remit the balance to Delta State.

Chief Magege who made his opinion known on the matter in a chat with newsmen at his residence at Agbarho maintained that Chief Ibori has already served the punishment for the alleged offence, saying that seizing the whole sum recovered again amounts to double punishment for the same offence. 

According to him, Chief Ibori was Governor of Delta and not a Federal government official, so any fund allegedly recovered from him should be remitted to the state. 

He said whatever the statements credited to the state government and other persons on the matter at that time was as a result of the circumstances then saying those comments should be disregarded in the current debate over the appropriation of the funds. 

He expressed regret that while the EFCC is recovering so much loots from abroad into the country without any media hype, Chef Ibori recovered loot is being overblown to further humiliate him, Deltans and the Niger Delta in particular, noting that any attempt to appropriate Delta fund for the development of infrastructures outside the state would stir up crisis and make Deltans bandits in the county. 

“To use our recovered funds to build the second Niger bridge, repair the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and so on is not acceptable to us. The federal government should take 2 or 1% of the money as service charge only and return the balance to Delta.