Posted on: 02:24 Sun, 05 Jun 2016



The Federal Government said,
yesterday, it had made cash
recoveries totaling
N78,325,354,631.82;
$185,119,584.61; £3,508,355.46
and €11, 250, from looters of public
treasury, from May 29, 2015 to May
25, 2016.

The disclosure was in fulfillment of
President Muhammadu Buhari’s
promise to make public the details
of the cash recoveries on his first
anniversary in office. The President
had said, in his broadcast to the
nation on the first anniversary,
that the details would be provided
by the Federal Ministry of
Information. Minister of
Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, in a statement, also
disclosed that Recoveries Under
Interim Forfeiture (cash and assets)
during the period totaled
N126,563,481,095.43;
$9,090,243,920.15; £2,484,447.55.

According to the statement, said to
have been based on the interim
report on the financial and assets
recoveries made by the various
government agencies from May 29,
2015 to May 25, 2016, the Funds
Awaiting Return From Foreign
Jurisdictions totaled 321,316,726.1
Dollars; 6,900,000 Pounds Sterling
and 11,826.11 Euros (Eleven
thousand, eight hundred and
twenty six Euros, 11 cents).

It showed that Non-Cash Recoveries
(Farmlands, Plots of Land,
Uncompleted Buildings, Completed
Buildings, Vehicles and Maritime
Vessels) during the period total 239.

Meanwhile, Sunday Vanguard has
been made to understand that the
reason why names of looters were
not disclosed was because of the
need to avoid the potential of
truncating the cooperation that was
already being enjoyed in the drive
to recover looted funds – in the first
instance – from some of those from
whom funds are being recovered,
just as the government did not
want to jeopardize the willingness
of others to return funds in their
possession.

The following, the statement said, is
the breakdown of the recovered cash
and assets:

In a related development, the
Presidency, last night, defended its
decision not to release the names of
those who returned the funds. It
cited the fact that while some of
those who returned money were
not in any way guilty of any
offence, publishing the names could
deter those contemplating
returning ill-gotten funds in their
custody.

A top Presidency source, who spoke
to Sunday Vanguard , anonymously,
said the administration was happy
to have recovered as much as $9
billion without going to court as he
said that a number of people still
willing to return could be
dissuaded by the publication of the
names.

“This thing is ongoing and one of
the reasons why we did not release
the names was that without going
to court we were able to retrieve all
that amount of money. If you
release names, other people who
want to do voluntary returns will
not do so. What we need is the
money and not the names”, he
stated.

“Secondly, many of those who
returned the money are not
necessarily guilty. For instance, if
my party gave me money to go and
campaign in an election, how am I
to know that that money was from
an illicit source?

“For instance if money is given to a
newspaper for publication, you
cannot criminalise the newspaper
because it did not know where the
money came from. If the
newspaper returns the money
would it be fair to publicise the
name of the newspaper.

“If you listen to the mob you will
just end up in the ditch. The
practical thing is that we want
more money to come in. And we
don’t even know what are the
terms of the agreement by which
anybody returned money.

“So, for those who are saying that
we ought to release the names, they
got it completely wrong; it would be
counterproductive. In fact, some
people could go to court suing us
for defamation and libel and then
the whole essence would be lost
and all people would be talking
would be about the court cases.

That is not what Nigeria needs
now. What Nigeria needs now is to
be focused and “we believe we
have taken the right step in letting
Nigerians know how much has
been recovered, $9 billion without
going to court”.