Federal government efforts at recovering stolen public funds lodged in various foreign banks has led to the discovery of another $9b United State Dollars, stashed in foreign bank accounts by a former National Security Adviser, NSA.
Chairman of the Presidential Investigation Panel on the Recovery of Public Property, Okoi Obono-Obla, who disclosed this to BusinessDay, said the federal government has written to the American government for the repatriation of the looted money
This is just as he also revealed that it has commenced investigation into the $7b bail out funds the Central Bank of Nigeria gave out to some Commercial banks in the country in 2006.
The money was allegedly “ gifted to the banks under Chukwuma Soludo, the then CBN Governor.
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“A leading Human Rights advocate in Nigeria provided us with the lead and we are currently investigating that also.
“We wrote to the CBN to find out if the money has been returned and they said no. The money was gifted to the banks under Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the then CBN Governor.
The panel however is querying the propriety of the transaction wondering how can such huge funds can be given out to private commercial banks?
“We have interrogated a lot of persons who were on the board of the CBN at that time. They said the money was gifted to them”
Speaking further on the NSA money , Obono- Obla said the panel had stumbled on the money taken out of the country by the former NSA who died not too long ago, adding that Federal government is currently making efforts to repatriate the money stashed away by the unnamed former National Security Adviser, NSA.
The mind bugling revelation is coming against the backdrop of other revelations of mindless looting of public funds from the country amounting to $582 billion from 1960 to date, according to Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs, an independent policy institute based in London.
The Chairman of the Presidential Investigation Panel on the Recovery of Public Property, Okoi Obono-Obla, told BusinessDay in Abuja, that Federal government is currently working hard to recover the “ loot “ which the former NSA stashed away illegally before he died.
The Obono- Obla led panel which is currently facing survival battle over “ legality” issue, was set up in 2017 to recover looted public property, under the Special Provisions Act (Decree No. 3) of 1984.
Obono-Obla however lamented that federal government “ may not recover all the $9b”; but assured that federal government will work to retrieve the looted fund
“We have just received the documents from the United States government about how our former National Security Adviser NSA stashed away $9b in the United States
“If we’ve $9b, you know what we can achieve. So corruption is a serious problem in Nigeria and we have to fight it.
“ The person is no more and we will recover it because they are trying to partner with us to recover the money. Nigerian government does not even know how much has been taken away from the country. A lot of assets have been taken out if this country.
He disclosed that efforts to get the money back into the country was facing several hiccups due to international political interests , but assured that “ We will try our best because the process is very cumbersome, there lots of international politics because these people are not interested in our progress.
“They are using this money to boost their own economy so, it may not be easy to recover all , but we will try our best. We will keep putting pressure on them to help us recover these funds.
He disclosed further that the penal has recovered the sum of $8b belonging to the Nigeria Import and Export Bank NEXIM.
The bank was set up to facilitate import and export business, but was ran down, by debtors who collected export processing loans and refused to pay back.
“Those who were involved in this were those given the responsibilities to run the affairs of the bank. So, we have commenced recovery of monies from the defaulters.
“So far we have also recovered about $3 million, belonging to NEXIM, paid to one of the new generation banks.
John Osadolor and Tony Ailemen, Abuja
