Falana To Buhari: Recover $200bn Loot, Forget $29.6bn Loan

President Muhammadu Buhari has been challenged to recover Nigeria’s alleged $200billion looted funds now trapped in foreign banks to fund his programmes instead of pursuing a foreign loan of $29.6billion that may throw the country into many years of debt repayment, and unending poverty.

Lagos-based human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, who gave the advise, also charged the Federal Government to deploy the recovered looted funds into concerted efforts to ameliorate the present economic recession, and restore confidence in the country.

Falana said he had written a letter to that effect to the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, urging her to focus attention more on strategies to recover the looted funds, and plough back such recovered funds into economic and infrastructure programmes and projects to rejig the nation.

The senior advocate of Nigeria, who spoke while delivering the 4th convocation lecture of Oduduwa University, Ipetumodu, Ile-Ife, titled, “The blessings of natural resource endowments and the curse of corrupt leadership: Critical perspectives on Nigeria’s state of the Federal Government’s move toward underdevelopment”, vehemently opposed the efforts to obtain the loan.

He stressed that at the end of the day, only 50 per cent of the amount will arrive Nigeria while generations yet unborn will suffer the repayment.

Falana also urged Federal Government to recover the looted wealth of the nation and prosecute the culprits notwithstanding their political affiliation, stressing that the payment and servicing of debts should be investigated, as the loans that gave rise to the debt were substantially diverted by public officers.

Speaking on the alleged trapped $200billion, he said: “Curiously, the Buhari administration has failed to address capital flight and round tripping by financial institutions, otherwise why has the government been reluctant to ask the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover and sanction the oil and shipping companies which under-declared crude oil worth billion of dollars shipped from Nigeria, under the previous administration?

“Why has the Federal Government failed to recover the $20.2billion withheld from the Federation Account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and some oil companies from 1999-2012?

“Why has the Federal Government not inquired into the allegation that the sum of $25.4billion was laundered and illegally taken out of Nigeria by a telecommunications company?

“Why has the government failed to recover the looted wealth of the nation which has been traced to financial institutions in the West and the United Arab Emirates?

“Why has the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) failed to recover the $7billion deposited and N600billion bailout given to the commercial banks in 2006 and 2008, respectively?

“Instead of intensifying efforts to recover such huge funds among several others, the government is determined to take a loan of $29.6billion”, Falana queried.

He noted that there was enough money in Nigeria to make the people live happily forever, if not for the poverty of ideas of the leadership which has impoverished the generality of Nigerians.