The Federal Government responded the FOI request made by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), says it has no accurate record of the total amount of public funds stolen by Sanni Abacha, a former military Head of State.
It was lent that the Freedom of Information (FoI) requests which was directed to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abukabar Malami, SAN, and his Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning counterpart, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed sought “information on the exact amount of public funds stolen by Abacha and details of spending of about $5 billion recovered loot since the return of democracy in 1999.”
Reacting to this, the Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar stated that the records and information requested are unavailable.
“We have searched our records and the information on the exact amount of public funds stolen by Abacha and how the recovered loot was spent from 1999 to 2015 is not held by the ministry.
“However, a total of $322 million was recovered from Switzerland in January 2018 and the funds were used for social investment projects. Also, $308 million was recovered from the Island of Jersey in collaboration with the United States of America.”
It was further lent that the expected repatriated funds “has been designated for the following projects: Lagos-Ibadan Expressway; Abuja-Kano Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge,‘’ He said.
Disappointed, SERAP deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare, disclosed that, ‘’the failure to provide information on the exact amount stolen by Abacha and on spending of recovered loot for the period between 1999 and 2015 implicitly amounts to a refusal by the government. The government also failed to provide sufficient details on the spending and planned spending of the $630 million it said it recovered since 2018.’’
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