The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), has said the Federal Government is judiciously utilizing the looted money recovered from overseas in financing capital projects. He also said: “Past administration’s looted huge amount of money that was meant for the fight against terrorism”. Malami, who stated this on Radio Kano, explained that the Muhammadu Buhari administration has so far executed many capital projects in all nooks and crannies of the country with the recovered money.
According to the minister, the Federal Government has recovered a huge amount of money from Switzerland. He said the Federal Government also recovered $311 million from China, saying the money received so far would help the government to achieve a lot. Malami said: “The money recovered from looted assets, especially those that were kept abroad were used judiciously and are all visible by Nigerians. “Some of the projects that were carried out from that money include the Kano- Abuja Highway, the Lagos- Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge, which was abandoned many years ago, and other projects like the school feeding programme, agricultural inputs support, N-Power and many others.” He insisted the fight against corruption has been successful, prompting international organisations to commend the country.
The minister said Buhari has shown a high level of commitment by not favouring anybody found wanting, and that people in his cabinet had been sanctioned over corruption allegations. He said: “The fight against corruption has recorded tremendous success also. This administration did not even favour even members of its cabinet whenever found guilty. Many people were convicted on several corruption allegations and nobody intervened to favour or influence the process. “This has really helped in the recovery of many looted assets and that is what we are using in many of our capital projects.
“It equally helped in the fight against insecurity because that past administration looted huge amount of money that was meant for the fight against terrorism. But we came and cleared all their mess. So, we did what they were not able to do in one year. “The time we came in, there were over 17 local governments in the North-East that were under the control of Boko Haram terrorists, there were attacks everywhere in the region. But we were able to recover the 17 local governments, restore peace, and build houses for IDPs and many more.”
