Anti-Corruption: APC Group Says Buhari Has Recovered N1trn

A voluntary think-tank group of the governing All Progressives Congress, the APC Legacy Awareness and Campaign (APC-LAC) on Thursday said President Muhammadu Buhari administration has recovered about N 1 trillion stolen public funds and assets in the last six years.

The group, in a statement, titled “President Buhari’s fight against corruption” in Abuja signed by APC National Youth Leader, Bar. Ismail Ahmed, former APC National Publicity Secretary, Mal. Lanre Issa-Onilu and two others, said that the recoveries were made in fulfilment of the President’s electioneering campaign of engaging in a holistic fight against corruption.

APC-LAC said that the administration has also launched frontal attacks on tax defaulters by ensuring that taxes and other debts owed to the federal government were recovered in full.

The group attributed the huge recoveries to the introduction and the expansion of the technical capacity of the anti-corruption agencies, through the significant increase in the use of Non-Conviction Based Asset Forfeiture Mechanisms (Interim and Final Forfeitures) by the country’s anti-corruption agencies by the APC-led administration.

Highlighting some of the high-profile recoveries, the group stated that forfeitures from the proceeds of looted funds and other recoveries are being deployed for use in the government’s Special Infrastructure and Social Investment Programmes or put into the annual budget.

According to the statement, the recoveries include: “$322 million Abacha Loot from the Government of Switzerland; $311 million Abacha Loot from the Bailiwick of Jersey; $100 million recovered by the EFCC for the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), from a company operating in the oil and gas sector; 4.2 million pounds sterling of Ibori Loot from the UK Government; 53 billion Naira for the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), from a real estate developer.

“Others are; $43 million security funds from an apartment in Ikoyi; and 189 billion Naira in ‘restrained’ funds from inflated personnel budgets, following ICPC’s scrutiny of practices, systems, and procedures of MDAs’ personnel cost from 2019 to 2020. Billions of Naira in pension funds have been recovered from local and foreign Insurance Companies who have been holding on to assets of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD).

“ICPC’s audit of Constituency Projects covering 2015 to 2018 helped recover N2billion of diverted funds and assets, and also forced about 300 contractors to return to the site to complete abandoned or poorly-executed projects.

“In August 2021 the ICPC commenced the third Phase of this Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Exercise. In 2019 alone, ICPC also recovered N32 billion worth of Land, Buildings, and Vehicles.

“In 2021, the EFCC and ICPC have continued their recovery efforts, with billions of Naira in cash assets already recovered, either through Interim or Final Forfeiture Orders.”