The federal government received £401,816,371 billion from international assets recovered from 2021 till date across different jurisdictions, Abubakar Malami, Attorney General of Nigeria has said.
Malami revealed this during his presentation at the 18th edition of the current administration’s scorecard from 2015 till date in Abuja on Thursday.
Giving a breakdown of the recoveries, he said the sum of £6,324,627.66, €5,494,743.71 and $390,000,000 were recovered from various jurisdictions.
“For local asset recovery and management in line with the cardinal principle of the present Administration in the fight against corruption, a total sum of N1,823,788,146.86 has been generated so far from forfeited properties,” he said.
Malami revealed that some of the recovered funds were used to fund the social investment program and were also used to finance critical infrastructures including the Abuja – Kano Expressway, Second Niger Bridge, and Lagos – Ibadan Expressway.
He said in collaboration with relevant security and Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) the Ministry developed a framework geared towards engagement of prosecution-guided investigation in terrorism cases, to enhance the challenges of successful prosecution in court.
Filing an update on the P&ID case, Malami said the main hearing will be held on January 16, noting that so far some form of progress has been recorded.
He said that substantive application to finally set aside the award will be heard, adding that those involved locally will be persecuted.
Speaking on the activities and successes of the ministry, he said that a total of 3,000 Terrorism cases have been profiled so far out of which over 1500 cases were prosecuted and 397 convictions realized.
“A total of 7000 cases involving various offences including Maritime, Armed Robbery, Vandalization of Electrical Equipment and Pipelines, Financial matters, Cyber Crime, Kidnapping and Anti-corruption were prosecuted,” he said.
He also revealed that in the fight against corruption, some other anti-corruption legislations were put in place such as the money laundering prevention and prohibition Act, 2017; company and allied matters Act incorporating beneficial ownership,2020; terrorism prevention and prohibition Act,2022; Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit Act, 2018, etc.
He also said that the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) which was first adopted by the Federal Executive Council in July 2017 to run from 2017 to 2021 has now been extended from 2022 to 2026.
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Malami the responsibility of handling negotiations and providing legal advice on all Federal Government Contract falls squarely on the Ministry. said during the review period, 648 cases were instituted against the president federal government and its agencies before states federal and ECOWAS courts were served on the ministry but the ministry saved the government from huge judgments debt liabilities of over 142bn naira and over $507 million.
“My Office has successfully executed over 350 Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) requests and over 50 extradition requests, among these, are MLA requests from the United Kingdom on trafficking in person, which led to the first conviction of the offender under the UK Modern Slavery Act on April 13, 2022. Other MLA requests from Turkey, USA on drug trafficking and other crimes have been successfully treated,” he said.
Highlighting the successes of agencies under the ministry, he said between 2019 and 2021 the Nigerian Copyright Commission which is tasked with the administration, enforcement, promotion and regulation of copyright in Nigeria seized about 95,068 pirated works with a monetary value of N84.72 million.
Similarly, the Legal Aid Council mandated to provide free legal assistance and representation in all criminal matters provided services to about 57,134 citizens and recovered the sum of N57,39 million as claims/compensation for victims of motor accident.
In his address, Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, said that in addition to the recently completed second Niger bridge, the 2.055km Loko-Oweto Bridge over River Benue and the 74-kilometre Nasarawa-Loko Road linking Nasarawa and Benue States will be commissioned in few weeks.
“These infrastructures alone have cut the journey from the Eastern part of the country to Abuja by three hours; also, the 74-kilometre
road linking Loko to Keffi used to take about 3 hours because it was an earth road however, with the completion of the road, the same journey takes only 30 minutes,” he said.
He also explained that the road and the bridge
projects came with the electrification of the communities around there leading to more economic activities and jobs for the people,
Mohammed said that the infrastructure has helped the communities increase access to markets and limit waste as it thrives mainly on agrarian and fishing activities, adding that it opens new opportunities for mining and trading.
