Was FG forced to announce the value of the recovered funds?

Before the government clarified issues concerning its recovered loot, a lot of folks were wondering if we still needed any foreign loans. Actually, had Buhari not ‘mistakenly’ promised Nigerians that he would reveal how much was recovered, I doubt if he was in a hurry to reveal the meagre sum that had been recovered.

Simply put, what the government has recovered is only about 115.7 billion naira. And this the money it can spend, today. It has over 2 trillion naira, in cash and assets, listed under interim forfeiture and some assets under funds awaiting repatriation from other jurisdictions.

Interim forfeiture refers to properties or assets of an accused person which has been frozen until the case against the person has been tried or closed. This simply means that if these accused persons manage to prove that they are not guilty, or use various delay tactics to slow down their trials, Buhari’s government might end up not getting this huge sum.

Meanwhile, government plans to recover about 386 billion naira from the nation’s looted funds, this year, to fund its budget. With the latest figures, we have not met up to 50 percent of our budgeted revenue from loot.

I tried to make this argument last Saturday on an article, titled ‘’It is high time the APC started looking forward’’, on The Cable newspaper, but as expected, I knew nobody would listen because we were still carried away with the euphoria of the moment – the recovered loot were just announced that morning. The NLC has even started listing projects the government should spend this money on.

Yes, Buhari has made some efforts in recovering stolen money, but, for now, the net recovered assets might be a little over half of what was reported. How? If you factor in the cost of recovering this money – legal fees, logistics and travel expenses – the net revenue could be far lesser than what was reported.

However, recovering the remaining 2 trillion naira assets would cost a lot in terms of legal fees. In some cases, we might need to hire lawyers from other jurisdictions. And if the defendants are able to afford better lawyers than Nigeria, the buck of these assets under interim forfeiture will develop wings and fly. This is possible because the EFCC is still underfunded.

Sadly, Nigerians might have realized that the billions of dollars bandied about by some politicians might not belong to Nigeria, or might not be recoverable. Remember, some people in government said $200 billion was stashed away in Dubai. Sadly, government has been able to make a case for only $10 billion dollars.

What does this mean? Except government doubles its effort on corruption, of course at the expense of other ventures, the funds it expects to recover can only fund this year’s deficit budget.

And if by next year the economy doesn’t improve, we might not be able to run the country effectively in the coming year.

Yes, I have no doubt in my mind that government would be transparent in managing these stolen funds. It is already planning of opening a dedicated account for these funds. Maybe this would ‘FastTrack’ the recovery of some of the nation’s assets from Britain and America.

These countries are concerned about how government is going to manage these monies. They don’t want these funds to be re-looted. But, the legal and constitutional impediments that need to be surmounted before transferring these monies from the West are enormous.

Buhari might get some concessions because he is seen as an honest leader. I hope the Shiite and IPOB killings don’t make these countries pick quarrels with Buhari? Any unnecessary bad blood can delay the arrival of these funds.

Well, the whole intent of announcing these figures have been met. Some are really pleased with the President as they can now see how far he has gone.

I was actually expecting to hear figures in the neighborhood of $ 100 billion. Well, let’s assume it is still work in progress. Remember, scholars have accused the last administration of not being able to account for over 30 trillion naira, and not 2 trillion naira.

I’m sure the media forced Buhari into announcing these figures because he said the other day that he has decided to stop talking about the $2.1 billion dollar arms deal because such publicity could jeopardize the recovery of the ‘stolen’ fund.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem that the looted funds, which have been recovered, can do much for this country. Well, as we pray for the President’s quick recovery, I urge you to also say a prayer or two for the country.