The Federal Government has started tracing looted Nigerian funds to foreign countries with the aim of retrieving them.
This move came after the declaration by President Muhammadu Buhari on
his first day in Aso Villa office that he inherited an almost empty
treasury from his predecessor, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, thus vowing that
his administration would recover all the looted funds kept in foreign
banks by corrupt Nigerians.
The President was quoted as saying in a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina.
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“The next three months may be hard, but billions of dollars can be recovered, and we will do our best,”
Some of the countries where looted funds from Nigeria have been kept in
the past include Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United
Kingdom and the United States. Others are France, Germany, British
Virgin Islands and other tax havens spread across the globe.
Adesina, who confirmed the move in an exclusive interview with Saturday PUNCH
on Thursday, said, the search for the looted funds will not be limited
to these countries but anywhere in the world where they may be hidden.
He said,
“The search will not only cover UK, US, Switzerland, Germany and other
known havens for Nigerian looted funds but will cover everywhere under
the sun. Anywhere and everywhere that the looted funds are, we have an
assurance from the United States of America to assist us to repatriate
these funds from anywhere under the sun.”
It was learnt that the Federal Government’s investigation was meant to
identify the individuals who were involved in corrupt practices and
ascertain the sums of money involved with a view to retrieving them.
Anti-corruption agencies will also play a prominent role in the exercise
targeted at corrupt government officials in the recent past
administration and their private sector collaborators, among others.
To this end, Adeniyi said that the Federal Government is planning to
engage the services of foreign private investigators to help trace and
find looted funds belonging to the people of Nigeria.
“Everything that needs to be done to get all those funds repatriated
will be done, including engaging private investigators,” the
Presidential spokesperson added.
Buhari had lamented that officials of the recent past government
jettisoned all financial and administrative instructions put in place in
parastatals and agencies while embracing impunity, lack of
accountability and financial recklessness in the management of national
resources.
This, the President said, had thrown the country into financial crisis.
The foreign search, which is expected to be thorough, will,
among others, be directed at foreign banks with the ultimate aim of
getting incontrovertible facts and figures that can aid the government
in collaboration with the US and other members of the G7 nations to
recover stolen funds stashed abroad.
Adesina said the identification of foreign banks being used to stash
stolen funds was one of the mandates given to Buhari during a meeting he
had with President Barak Obama at the recent G-7 summit in Germany.
He said,
“When the President met with the G7, the promise that the American
President gave him was that Nigeria should just provide all the facts,
the figures, the statistics, including the banks.
“He promised that if Nigeria could make the information available, then the US will help in recovering the stolen funds.”
When asked specifically if the Federal Government had started identifying the banks, the presidential spokesman said,
“Yes. In fact, the President said the government will spend the next
three months identifying banks, individuals and monies that have been
ferried out of this country.
“The assurance the President has given is that within the next three
months, we have to concentrate on getting those monies back to the
government coffers,” he added.
Buhari had said early in the week that his administration had received
firm assurances of cooperation from the US and other countries in his
quest to recover and repatriate funds stolen from Nigeria.
Buhari, while granting audience to members of the Northern Traditional
Rulers Council led by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III,
at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, had said that it was now up to Nigeria
to provide the international community with the facts and figures
needed to drive the recovery effort.
He said he would be busy, in the next three months, getting the facts that would help in recovering the stolen funds.
“In the next three months, our administration will be busy getting those
facts and the figures to help us recover our stolen funds in foreign
countries,’’ the President had said.
The Federal Government may also go after property owned by public fund
looters in London, Dubai, US, Saudi Arabia and other choice
international real estate markets where Nigerians are known to be some
of its biggest buyers.
It was also learnt that the Department for International Development, a
UK government department responsible for administering overseas aid, had
alerted the President on over N1.3tn stolen during the last
administration, where it is kept and who the beneficiaries are.
“This was one of the agreement reached between President Buhari and the
G7 countries when the former attended the meeting in Germany,” the DFID
source said.
The US in March 2014 had ordered a freeze on $458m in assets stolen by
the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, and his accomplices. Abacha
died in office in 1998.
The US Justice Department named two bank accounts in the Bailiwick of
Jersey and two other accounts in France as depositories of $313m and
$145m Abacha loot respectively. Four other investment portfolios and
three bank accounts in Britain were also frozen, with an estimated value
of at least $100m.
President Buhari said the last administration mismanaged the economy
while stating that it was a disgrace that state governments in the
country can’t pay salaries; hence, the need to recover looted funds
wherever they may be hidden.
Chief Olu Falae, commended the move and described it as laudable and
desirable, he expressed the belief that looted funds could be recovered
because the whole world is now talking about promotion of transparency
in governance.
“If some monies could be recovered from Abacha loot in the recent past,
then it will be possible to recover looted funds from others as well,”
he said.
The former minister, however, urged the President to follow due process while going after the looted funds.
Falae said,
“It is just that we have to follow due process because we cannot force
the countries where the looted funds were stashed to return them because
they are not subject to our authorities. But if we follow due process,
it might be possible for us to recover those monies.
“The monies should not just be recovered; they should be used to develop
the country. There should be no exception; anybody who has looted the
public fund should be made to return it. Not only monies stashed abroad
should be recovered, those stolen and kept in the country should also be
recovered. I wish the President good luck in his move to achieve this
initiative.”
Also, the Convener of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, Mr. Debo
Adeniran, asked Buhari to follow the normal channel through mutual legal
assistant treaty that Nigeria has with the countries where such monies
were stashed, if he really wants the stolen funds repatriated.
He said, “The President may succeed if he invokes the letter of the
mutual legal assistant treaty, but I am not sure Nigeria has such with
Switzerland although that country has been voluntarily returning Abacha
loot to Nigeria.
“There are several other countries that may not be willing to return the
volume of the money that was kept in their banks by the looters except
there is international status that Nigeria can invoke to compel them to
repatriate the fund.
“Nigeria has to go through legal process except it was one of the wish
list that Buhari presented to the G7 countries. We have expressed it in
some fora that we expected that Buhari would make it the top of his
agenda at the G7 summit in Germany that he should get the G7 to
cooperate with Nigeria on how not to allow looted funds by Nigeria’s
public officials to be kept in their financial institutions.”
Adeniran also asked Buhari to prevail on the governments of the
countries where the public funds were being stashed to assist Nigeria to
expose those behind the practice.
He said, “Property acquired in those countries must also be investigated
and if it is discovered that the property were procured through
proceeds of corruption, they should be confiscated on behalf of Nigeria,
sell them and repatriate the money to Nigeria.”
He said, “It is our hope that something positive will come out of it
considering that the banks in the US and some other Western countries
were part of the laundering. They collected money from corrupt Nigerians
and as far as we know, their countries did nothing to make sure the
banks do not collect stolen money from Nigeria.
“Those found culpable in looting our public funds should be tried in the
law courts. It’s not enough to collect the stolen funds without any
sanctions meted out to them to serve as deterrent to others. Punishments
meted out to corrupt individuals are also not commensurate with the
crime committed, and this should be corrected.”
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