Veteran actor and broadcaster, Patrick Doyle, has raised alarm over the increasing use of real estate sector as a front for money laundering and illegal wealth storage.
Doyle made the claims during a recent interview on Echo Room, hosted by Quincy Jones, where he shared concerns about the number of unoccupied and overpriced buildings springing up across the country.
According to him, many of the buildings seen across Abuja and the Lekki corridor in Lagos are not for housing people, but are simply “containers” for hiding stolen money.
“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,” he said.
The 64-year-old actor didn’t mince words as he continued, “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.”
Doyle described the real estate boom as artificial and wasteful, wondering why there are so many empty or uncompleted buildings in a country that still suffers from a serious housing shortage.
“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 said.
He also referred to a viral case of a man allegedly owning 7,000 apartments in one estate in Abuja.
“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,” Doyle added.
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