By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
All Progressives Congress (APC) voluntary think tank group, APC Legacy Awareness and Campaign (APC LAC) yesterday said President Muhammadu Buhari’s war against corruption since his assumption of office in 2015, has recovered Nigeria’s one trillion naira stolen funds and assets.
A statement issued yesterday by the group led by the Director General of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Moh Lukman, Youth Representative in the APC Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), Ismail Ahmed, among others, said about three hundred contractors were forced back to site to complete abandoned constituency projects by lawmakers.
“ICPC’s audit of Constituency Projects covering 2015 to 2018 helped recover 2 billion Naira of diverted funds and assets, and also forced about 300 contractors to return to 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 32 billion Naira 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”, the group said.
The APC -LAC said under President Buhari’s watch the Federal Government has prioritized the recovery and return of stolen assets belonging to the Nigerian people through the establishment of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC).
PACAC, it said, has helped expand technical capacity within Nigeria’s anti-corruption agencies, as well as within the Judiciary, resulting in significant increase in the use of Non-Conviction Based Asset Forfeiture Mechanisms (Interim and Final Forfeitures) by the country’s anti-corruption agencies.
Giving insight into the recoveries, APC LAC said “High-profile recoveries include the following: $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; $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).”
While pointing out that all final forfeitures are being deployed for use in the Government’s special Infrastructure and Social Investment Programmes, or put into the annual Budget, the group said the most recent Abacha and Ibori Loots were transferred to the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), for transparent management under the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF).
“In addition to looted and hidden funds, the Buhari Administration is also focused on ensuring that taxes and other debts owed the Federal Government are recovered in full. To this end the Federal Ministry of Finance launched the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS) in 2017, and the Voluntary Offshore Asset Regularization Scheme (VOARS) in 2018.
“VAIDS was followed by the launch of Project Lighthouse in 2018, by the Federal Ministry of Finance, as a data-mining initiative that aggregates tax, income and asset data from individuals and companies, enabling the Government to have a full picture of levels of tax compliance.
“So far Project Lighthouse has identified debts in excess of 5 trillion Naira, owed the Federal Government by individuals and corporate entities, with recoveries ongoing”.
