Stolen funds: Attempt to frustrate recovery, immoral, daylight robbery — FG

The Federal Government, yesterday, described as immoral and daylight robbery, the actions of some countries who are custodians of stolen funds from Nigeria, stating that most of these countries were putting in place hurdles to frustrate the recovery of the funds.


This was even as the Federal Government also stated that it was following the rule of law in the sanction of MTN over alleged illegal importation of funds from Nigeria.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyema, stated this in Abuja at International Conference on combating illicit financial flows, IFF, and enhancing asset recovery for sustainable development organised by Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC.

Onyema also lamented the hurdles faced mainly by developing countries in the repatriation of stolen funds from some western countries.

Specifically, he stated that in its attempt to recover stolen funds from Switzerland, the country was confronted with harrowing experiences, which saw some percentages of the looted fund paid to companies and individuals in Switzerland.

He said: “We got some money back from Switzerland, but my God, when you look at the details, I was shocked and extremely angry at the process of recovery. If you should see the percentage of the money that eventually came back to us; that was paid out to all kinds of institutions in Switzerland — to lawyers, to this, to that, percentages of huge sums of money. I said this is daylight robbery that these countries are perpetrating and of course playing on the fact that we are not United States.

“This is something that we would keep harping on and mentioning wherever we have the opportunity that these countries would have to do a lot more, because at the end of the day, if not, they are condoning huge theft and accessories after the fact of crime.

“They say Nigeria is fantastically corrupt, but look at what those other countries are doing in encouraging corruption, keeping those assets for their own benefits.”