By Oyinkansayo Wole-Bodunde.
Veteran Nollywood actor Patrick Doyle has made a claim that the real estate industry has become a place for financial crimes, particularly money laundering.
Doyle alleged that the industry is being used to launder illicit funds, leading to the increase of unoccupied and unfinished buildings.
In a recent interview on Echo Room, hosted by Quincy Jones, Doyle pointed out the abnormality of many completed houses in Abuja and the Lekki corridor that people do not live in.
He said, “If you go to Abuja and many estates in the Lekki corridor, you will see plenty of houses completed and uninhabited. So, if it’s the prices that are too high, how come people are still building and they are not being occupied? That should tell you something.”
Doyle further said, “It’s funny because real estate has become one of the leading forms of money laundering. A lot of it is illegal money finding expression in the construction industry. It’s artificial. It beats my imagination how we have so many uncompleted buildings in a place where there is a shortage of housing for people but there are a lot of empty estates. Go to Abuja, it’s crazy.”
He also gave an example of an individual owning 7,000 apartments in one Abuja estate, highlighting the absurdity of such a situation. Doyle concluded, “That only tells you that people are just using money that has been stolen to store up value, hoping that one day they will sell. Didn’t you hear about the man who has about 7,000 apartments in one estate in Abuja? It’s better to use the money to build something than to store it in the house where rats are.”
