Skip to main content

MANAGEMENT OF NIGERIA'S LOOTED FUNDS – BY UWAKWE ROLAND

It is no longer news that the government of President Muhammad Buhari has recovered some of the nation’s assets looted by corrupt Nigerians. While it is important to commend the government for such a giant step, it is also imperative for the APC led government to work out strategies to manage the resources recovered to avoid re-looting the funds.
While I may support the argument that it is premature to begin to name names of some persons who have returned some of the Nation’s asserts. It also becomes very difficult to know who and who stole what and from which vote as to determine what the money will be used for.  For instance, if you recover assets from a past governor, do you return it to the state where it was stolen from? Again, if the money is stolen directly from the nation’s resources, do you return it to the Federation Account to be shared by the three tiers of government or what?

We have also seen situations where funds meant for projects and welfare of the staff of MDA’s are stolen by some Directors, Permanent Secretaries and Ministers, when such funds are returned, how will they be managed?. Will the government return them back to accomplish the purpose for which they were first appropriated or what?
I think the move by the Finance Minister to relocate some MDA offices to recovered looted properties is a move in the right direction, as it will reduce expenditure on rent of offices paid yearly by government. As she rightly pointed out the average annual expenditure on rent (by MND’s) for a three year period of 2012 to 2014 was N3.55 billion.
It is an international best practice that public funds are not handled in secrecy; it is handled with all sense of transparency and integrity. Hence, this government must be seen as handling the nation’s looted resources with care and in a transparent manner. Therefore the government must come out with a clear strategy to managing these funds for the betterment of the generality of Nigerians who have been short-changed over the years by corrupt individuals. The government must meet with some legal experts to reconsider the option of naming the names of the persons who returned these assets as to determine what to do with them or where to return them. Perhaps the government can as well establish a commission or a body of persons with integrity to effectively manage these asserts separately so that Nigerians can measure the impact of the policy.
ROLAND UWAKWE

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LOVE IS OVERRATED

We often mistake lust for love and many people mistake infatuation for true love. So many people preach that if you are no longer happy in a marriage then you should just call it quits. How about telling people to remember what made them happy in the first place and work on getting back to that place. A man wakes up in the morning and tells his wife he wants a divorce because he has fallen in love with someone else even when children are involved. The fact that you once proposed marriage to a person means you once considered her above every woman, how then do you discover years into the marriage that you love another? Especially after having kids. You probably have seen a slimmer woman or a pretty face or a sexy woman and concluded that you now have a new love. The desire for something new is not usually love but an attraction which can be classified as lust or infatuation. Any time you put your new flame above your children, then you know that you are deep in lust. Sex is an integra...
Post a Comment
Read more

RAPE, ITS JUSTIFICATION AND VICTIM SHAMING

It's sad that this is a world where things are not perfect but isn't that why we have laws; to correct the ills in society? I read today on a blog about a filmmaker who said that "nonviolent rape" should be legalized and that the reason rapists were raping girls was because they were sexually frustrated and that girls should accept it and even prepare themselves for it by carrying condoms and cooperating with their rapists. In fact it is clear that civilization is beyond running water and having flushable toilets, a lot of minds are still in a dark place. Before you join the number of people condemning him, think of how you shame victims of rape by suggesting that somehow they did something to provoke the animal instinct in the rapist. The dust hasn't settled yet on the case of Busola Dakolo and Biodun Fatoyinbo where an Abuja high court struck out the case and called an abuse of court processes and said it was statue barred. They were irregularities as cited by ...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION IN THIS GOVERNMENT: REAL OR SELECTIVE

President Muhammadu Buhari's selling point coming into the 2015 general elections was his would-be fight against corruption which many Nigerians said was Nigeria's biggest problem and which the international community also said was Nigeria's bane of development. His reelection in 2019 also echoed the same thing although many Nigerians were of course saying they had seen his true colours. In this government's fight against corruption, so much has been witnessed. There have been several convictions of high profile politicians but only people not at the core of the government or those who do not share the same religion with the president. Many embarrassing cases have been swept under the carpet like those of the former secretary to the government of the federation, the reinclusion of a wanted former government official (who was answering for his crimes as ex pensions boss) in this government,  most recently the appointment of a former politician who was tried in court for...
Post a Comment
Read more