The story of recovered looted funds is no longer new in Nigeria. At various stages, huge amounts have been announced as either stolen, looted or recovered. During the immediate past regime of  President Goodluck Jonathan,  humongous sums were reportedly recovered , especially from the Abacha stash.
As he was canvassing for electorate’s vote in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari made the issue of looted funds a campaign point , promising to make known any amount recovered and the culprits.
In line with that promise , one year into his regime, the Federal Government announced the recovery of a whopping sum of N3.4 trillion in cash and assets from looters in the country in one year.
Subsequently, there has been other looted fund recoveries from political office holders and other top personalities in the country. Just a few weeks ago , the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed , disclosed that the sum of $151 million and N8 billion looted funds were recovered from three sources through the whistle blowing policy recently introduced by the Ministry of Finance. That excludes the $9.2 million cash recently recovered from a former General Managing Director of NNPC, Andrew Yakubu.
The sweeping recoveries that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission  (EFCC) claims to have been making since the introduction of the whistle-blowing policy is mind- blowing.
To think that such reckless stealing has been going on in a country that claims to have laws and order,  yet there is hardly any successful prosecution, not to talk of conviction, is simply incredible. In other civilized clime, many of the culprits would have been facing the wrath of the law by now.
But ours is a country where conscienceless opportunistic elite after stealing the states and the nation blind are welcomed with parties and state banquets. Ours is a nation where you can amass a lot of wealth by exploiting the power conferred on you by your office and you will be applauded, whereas   an ordinary person caught stealing a goat spends years in prison. Let’s leave the discussion on this gross injustice for another day and come back to the issue of the claimed recovered funds.
However, one finds it a bit worrisome that despite the huge sums said to have been recovered, the economy of the country is still in a very bad shape; poverty continues to ravage the land. We still hear the Federal Government seeking loans from international lenders including the World Bank and the African Development Bank to meet budget shortfalls and fund badly needed infrastructural projects.
One must not be an expert in economics to reason that if you claim to have over 3.4 trillion naira, there is no justification for borrowing 2.2 trillion, an amount far below what you have.
The question then is, where are the recovered funds? Is the recovery a mere propaganda as many people have insinuated? Last year, the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof Itse Sagay disclosed that despite recovering stolen Nigerian money, President  Buhari might not be able to spend the monies on urgent needs of the country until all legal bottlenecks surrounding the recovered funds are permanently resolved.
How long will it take for these bottlenecks to be sorted out? Eternity? The truth is that Nigerians legitimately deserve to know how the Federal Government had spent or intends to spend the recovered monies.
Should the government have sufficient reasons not to plough the recovered loot into the budget as has been severally suggested , why not invest it in non-oil revenue generating sectors of the economy, particularly the agricultural and solid mineral sectors, which are the key areas needed to drive the economy  and create jobs for the teeming populace?
Today,  Nigeria has become a dumping ground for all kinds of edible  commodities from all parts of the world, including packaged garri from India. I’m sure the $9.2 million recovered from Yakubu can turn around the agriculture sector and save us from this shame.
What about building world class hospitals, equipping our schools, empowering small scale industries with part of the recovered loots? Certainly, the power sector will witness a massive improvement if a reasonable percentage of these monies is genuinely invested in it. Indeed the recovered fund is enough to revamp the economy if properly and sincerely utilized.
Apart from using the recovered funds to turn things around in the country, one thinks it is high time the government began the arduous task of putting in place  institutional frameworks that will discourage corruption.
Andrew Yakubu said the $9.2m found in his house came as gifts from people. Painfully, that might be true because the system made it possible.
I allign with some analysts who say that corruption will always thrive in a system that deliberately prices essential , scarce commodities like petroleum products below market prices. The mess currently going on with the CBN forex policy will also  soon explode by the fullness of time. The operators  know that the system is faulty and they are happily manipulating it.
Most importantly, as long as those involved in the primitive, mindless looting of the treasury continue to go scot- free, we will continue to have more of such looting and the country will go down for it .
Calista Ezeaku