Pioneer Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, has disclosed how former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, refused a request by the United Kingdom to repatriate looted funds back to Nigeria.
Ribadu explained that during the early days of the anti-corruption fight, the commission traced some looted funds to the UK, which was asked to be repatriated, but the then Prime Minister, Tony Blaire gave condition under which the demand will be met.
According to Ribadu, Blaire insisted that the looted funds can only be returned if Nigerian government allow EFCC invest the loots, this Obasanjo refused, Authority newspaper reports.
He said, “The federal government hired foreign lawyers notably to assist in the identification and return of stolen public monies in different parts of the world. This foreign aspect of it was largely handled by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA). However, I was partly involved in many other directions especially with the Swiss authorities which presented us with some very unique experience at the time. And Nigeria had to negotiate with the Swiss government on getting our money back; there condition was that they would want to see the returned money used for some specific social intervention projects.
“However, our dilemma then was the constitutional requirement that all recovered monies must be first paid in the federation account. And of course all spending from the federation account must be budgeted for.
Source: Dailypost
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