Why International Partners are Reluctant to Return our Stolen Loots – Buhari
By Zeenat Sambo
President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed that international partners are often reluctant to return stolen loots to the country because they fear they will be relooted by corrupt Nigerian officials.
The President made this known in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday
He also disclosed that with the Whistleblowing Policy introduced in his first year in office, hundreds of millions of naira in stolen funds have been returned to Nigeria’s coffers.
He said: “Those partners refused to return these monies held for decades to previous Nigerian administrations in the certainty they would simply be re-stolen.
They changed their approach with us because they knew my administration could be trusted.”
He further noted that working with international partners, hundreds of millions of various currencies have been returned from abroad, primarily, from the UK, US, and Switzerland, and they were used as social and welfare funds distributed directly to poor Nigerians during the Covid pandemic.
He added that the recovered funds have also helped to boost the nations Infrastructural drive.
“As an illustration, Monetary recoveries (January-December) 2021 show that more than N152 billion has been recovered. Dollar recoveries for the year amount to over USD 386 million; GBP, more than 1.1 million; Euro, about 157,000; Saudi Riyals, about 1.7 million some more in Digital and other currencies,” he explained.