President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday vowed to arrest and prosecute former ministers and government officials found culpable of looting and stealing Nigeria’s crude oil.
He said his administration will recover the mind-boggling funds stashed in foreign bank accounts.
The President, who made the vow during his meeting with members of Nigerians In Diaspora Organization, NIDO, resident in the United States and Canada at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington DC,.
The President lamented that “corruption in Nigeria has virtually developed into a culture where honest people are abused.”
According to him, the government has established contact with countries with possible traces to the illegally acquired monies, expressing his determination to re-instill the culture of transparency in Nigeria’s public life.
“We are now looking for evidences of shipping of some of our crude, their destinations and where and which accounts they were paid and in which country.
“When we get as much as we can get as soon as possible, we will approach those countries to freeze those accounts and go to court, prosecute those people and let the accounts be taken to Nigeria. 250,000 barrels per day of Nigerian crude are being stolen and people sell and put the money into individual accounts.
“The amount of money is mind-boggling but we have started getting documents where some of the senior people in government and former ministers have as much as five accounts and were moving about one million barrels per day on their own. We have started getting those documents.
“I assure you that whichever documents we are able to get and subsequently trace the sale of the crude or transfer of money from ministries, departments, Central Bank, we will ask for the cooperation of those countries to return those monies to the federation account and we will use those documents to arrest those people and prosecute them. …Read More
Source:: New Mail
