Justice sector recovered N60bn, $667m looted from Nigeria in 2years, AGF claims

The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, on Monday revealed that the Federal Government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari recovered N59.9billion and another $666,676 within its first two years from the justice sector.

Buhari’s government had during the period under review entered into memoranda of understanding (MoUs), with about six countries which allowed it to track and get back some funds looted from the country during past administrations.

Among the countries the government said it made the recoveries from were United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Italy, while it said it was still vigorously pursuing the recovery of looted funds from the United States of America, Ireland, Island of Jersey and France.

Malami stated this in a document he released through his office Monday night, which detailed the achievements of Buhari’s administration since inception in 2015 in the justice sector.

The 19-page document, revealed that of the recovered amount, N90million was voluntarily returned by looters, N50billion paid as fine by MTN, while N7billion, $10million were recovered from private residences in the country.

The document further showed that $250million was seized from oil bunkering entities through interim forfeiture, $270million from commercial banks, while $136.6 was awaiting actual remittance to the government.

The document also disclosed that “within the same period, the Ministry of Justice was able to conclude 125 court cases of which 17 are appellate matters, 24 through out-of-court settlements (ADR) while others are still pending in various courts.

“Most of the concluded matters are decided in favour of the Federal Government and the ministry was able to save about N38, 088,836,935.50 in claims against the government.”

Read also: Kachikwu vows to resign if Nigeria still imports fuel by 2019

On achievements recorded by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), which the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation also supervises, the report indicated that the agency made tremendous success in its effort to control the spread and consumption of illicit drugs in the country with many arrests, seizures and destruction of banned substances.

The document revealed that a total of 1,153,956.31 kilogrammes of hard drugs were seized within the last two years, while no fewer than 17,000 drug suspects were arrested within the same period.

NDLEA also during the period in review prosecuted a total of 9,890 suspects and successfully convicted a total of 4,984 and destroyed a total of 109,590 hectares of drug farms in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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