Ex-Convict Alamieyeseigha To Forfeit $600,000 US Mansion, $400,000 Cash, In US “Kleptocracy Initiative”

Former governor of Bayelsa and convicted money launderer, DSP Alamieyeseigha will be losing his mansion in the Potomac area of Maryland, as he could not pay his annual real estate tax to the state.

Mr. Alamieyeseigha, popular known as “Alams,” bought the property from his looting of Bayelsa State resources.  That led to his arrest in the United Kingdom in 2006, from which he jumped bail dressed as a grandmother.

Officials of the state of Maryland Assessment and Taxation department told SaharaReporters that Alams owed the state some $10,000 in real estate taxes.

They said the property, which is located 504 Pleasant Drive, Rockville, MD 20850-5879 belongs to Solomon & Peters Ltd, an offshore front company used by the ex-convict to purchase the property in 2003 while he was the governor of Bayelsa state.   Solomon $ Peters Limited in registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Alams’ legal troubles led to the elevation of Goodluck Jonathan to the governorship of that state, and soon after, to national prominence when he was singlehandedly selected by President Olusegun Obasanjo as presidential running mate to Umaru Yar’Adua.  He was later arrested in the UK for money laundering but fled to Nigeria, where he was arrested and prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission after members of the Bayelsa State assembly impeached him.

In 2005, Mr. Alamieyeseigha’s daughter, Oyindounbra, also bought a house in Whittier, California, where she attended a Community College.  In that same year, she sold the house for $1.7 before relocating to Nigeria.

Maryland officials told SaharaReporters that Mr. Alamiseyeseigha has not paid his property taxes for almost a year.

Interestingly, the same property in Maryland is being recovered by the Obama administration through the US Department of Justice’s “Kleptocracy Initiative”.   In March this year, the office of the US Attorney General filed to forfeit the assets of Mr. Alamieyeseigha in the US. The Potomac home, which is valued at $600,000, and another $400,000 belonging to the disgraced Governor was also found in a brokerage account at the Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC account in Massachusetts.

If and when the civil proceedings are concluded, the US government plans to repatriate the stolen monies to Nigeria.

“Funds of this nature that are repatriated to Nigeria ought to be put directly into specific public projects that are negotiated between the United Nations and the Nigeria government,” a newspaper columnist told SaharaReporters today.  “Otherwise, how does one know that the funds do not return to Alams through Nigeria’s own Kleptocracy Highway?”

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