The Presidency has revealed President Muhammadu Buhari has
not rescinded his decision to publish the amounts that have been recovered by
his administration from those who had allegedly looted the nation’s treasury.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and
Publicity, Garba Shehu, said this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on
Monday, May 30, a day after Nigeria marked its Democracy Day.
The conversation, ‘Assessing Buhari’s One Year In Office’
saw the President’s spokesman addressing several controversies generated by the
President’s national broadcast on Sunday.
The President’s Democracy Day speech had been widely
criticised because it failed to address the promise to publish the amounts of
funds that have been recovered and from whom they were recovered since the
anti-corruption campaign started.
The President had promised that the information would be
made public when his administration clocks one year, but Mr. Shehu said that
“the President did not at any time say he was going to name names.”
Mr. Shehu expressed surprise that the issue had generated so
much negative reactions from Nigerians, explaining that the President did not
cancel his decision to announce the seizures that have been made.
“What he (President) said was that the Minister of
Information will be making a pronouncement on this, and this is going to happen
when work resumes on Tuesday.
“This is likely going to be out by Wednesday, or latest by
Thursday. So nothing has changed from the position that there will be
disclosure.
“The President has given the authorisation that these assets
that have been taken back from those who took from the treasury be put out
there. So my view is that nothing is lost.”
Mr. Shehu said that the directive by President is that
“money on account” in the CBN should be disclosed. He explained that there were
also many accounts that have been frozen by investigating agencies.
He named the Police, EFCC, ICPC and the Office of the
National Security Adviser among those handling the matter, so the Presidency
expects “that there will be a snapshot of where they stand with the ongoing
investigation and the recoveries when that disclosure is made.”
One Year Lost
Mr. Shehu disagreed with the view by some Nigerians that the
Buhari administration had lost one year, as it has failed to achieve some of
what it promised to achieve in the first year.
“The President had focus; he knew what to do from the
beginning. He identified the problems of this country, putting the security of
the country on top of the heap.
“He said repeatedly, ‘this country must be secured, there
must be peace in this country for you to develop and manage it very well.'
“And I think that he has done for this country what others
had failed to do for four to five years in which they had allowed problems like
Boko Haram to fester.
“A street protest in Maiduguri had grown into a city-wide
phenomenon, a problem for neighbouring states and all of the Lake Chad, in
fact, a global phenomenon with the linkage to ISIS.
“President Buhari within one year is about to bring Boko
Haram to a closure. This is massive,” he said.
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