Yemi Adedeji, Abuja
The Presidency says there is no going back on the decision to share the $322m recovered Abacha’s loot to the poorest of the poor in the country.
The federal government’s decision to share the recovered loots has been met with fierce criticism from Nigerians.
Juliet Nwagwu, the Special Assistant to President on Judicial Reform, at the Inception meeting of the Monitoring Recovered Asset through Transparency and Accountability (MANTRA) organised by Africa Network of Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) in Abuja explained that the decision taken due to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Swiss government and network of Civil Societies.
The Conditional Cash Transfer of the fund to the poor, according to her, would also enable the mandatory involvement of the World Bank in the process, such that the money would be used in a subsisting programme of the Bank in Nigeria so as to enable it to use its existing monitoring and broader institutional resources to monitor the use of the funds.
Nwagwu also explained that a Swiss Court had ordered the commencement of repatriation of Abacha loot on the condition that World Bank would supervise utilisation to prevent mismanagement and relooting.
She stated: “The international community is watching us to see how we spend the repatriated Abacha loot it is on that basis that the country would be able to access other stolen funds stashed up in foreign account”
” The beneficiaries of the cash transfer programme include households contained in the National Social Register developed by the National Social Safety-Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO) in collaboration with and support from the World Bank.”
Nwagwu who is also the National Coordinator of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) stated that the funds for cash transfers were an outcome of months of negotiation that enabled the repatriation of the funds in the first place.
She disclosed that the United State has agreed to return the $900,000 stashed in the country by the former Governor of Balyelsa State, Depriye Alemeyesegha adding that the United Kingdom is also in the process of returning the $73million from the Malabu Oil deal.
Nwagwu revealed that the Cash Transfer Programme expected to kick off in July 2018 would be implemented in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT as against the 19 states that initially subscribe to the Social Investment Programme.
Meanwhile, the Chairman, ANEEJ Board of Directors, Prof. Ben Aigbokhan, said that their campaign for looted assets is yielding dividends after its inception twenty years ago.
He noted that his organisation would ensure that those who engage in range of corrupt activities that enables the looting our collective resources are held to account for them.
Aigbokhan said: “the project will go beyond just the monitoring of loot to more sustainable objective of establishing a regime for transparent, accountable return and utilisation.
