The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has alleged that all the stolen public funds recovered between 2016 and 2019 during the tenure of the immediate past government of Muhammadu Buhari are currently missing from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
According to a statement released by SERAP on Wednesday afternoon via its verified page, the group claimed that the missing looted funds came to light when the management of the apex bank failed to account for them.
In a related development, the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre) had previously expressed disagreement with the Nigerian government regarding the amount of looted funds it claimed to have recovered from 2015 to 2022.
The Buhari Government had disclosed that over one billion dollars were recovered as looted funds within the span of seven and a half years. Former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, announced during a briefing with newsmen that $1 billion in looted funds had been recovered by the Buhari-led administration. Malami further stated that these funds had been deployed to various sectors of the economy, including poverty alleviation.
However, Mr. Olanrewaju Suraju, Chairman of HEDA Resource Centre, contested the accuracy of the government’s figures. He criticized the inconsistency in the stating and flaunting of figures, particularly regarding asset recovery, under President Buhari’s administration.
Suraju highlighted the lack of coordination in the government’s asset recovery program, emphasizing the importance of accurate statistics and data in governance. He urged for a more constructive and responsible approach from the government to provide comprehensive data covering both international and local recoveries.
