IT is coming late in the four-year life of this regime, but the setting up of the Audit Committee on the Recovery and Management of Stolen Assets, ACRMSA, by President Muhammadu Buhari is a welcome development.
The expectation was that as soon as the government took over in 2015, it would start its anti-graft crusade by setting up this audit committee to inquire into the proceeds of assets recovery efforts under previous regimes. From there the panel would keep track independently of all newly recovered funds and assets and keep the government and members of the public regularly informed.
Because of the absence of an audit Nigerians have been bombarded with all sorts of spurious and real claims by government officials in a manner that has made it impossible to keep track of the real achievements recorded. Government officials have been at the forefront of creating this information and misinformation, thus sometimes reducing the anti-graft war to a circus.
It will be recalled that the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, on February 3, 2016, sensationally disclosed at an anti-graft forum that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had recovered “over $2 trillion” ( well over N700 trillion) within 12 years. In spite of the uproar that trailed that obviously incorrect figure, the AGF neither recanted nor cleared the air.
Later that year on June 5, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, announced that Federal Government had recovered N3.4 trillion within one year of its assumption of power.
The confusion over the true state of assets recovery and management was evident way back in August 2015 when a lawyer, George Uboh, accused the EFCC that under its former Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, N1.993 trillion recovered funds were “diverted” instead of being remitted accordingly. The Senate stepped into the matter, but somehow, nothing came of it. Lamorde was quietly removed from the EFCC and later reposted to the Special Fraud Unit, SFU, of the Police.
Right now, the nation is being treated to another allegation that EFCC “shared” 222 recovered pension properties among its officials, an allegation the anti-graft body has hotly denied.
We call on President Buhari to capitalise on the aegis of this three-man panel headed by Olufemi Lijadu, to unravel the truth behind these allegations and figures and inform the people via the Presidency and the National Assembly which is in charge of the Federal purse.
The panel must take its assignment seriously. We urge all the ministries, departments, agencies and independent bodies both in Nigeria and abroad connected to our public assets recovery effort to cooperate fully with the panel. It will give the anti-graft war a renewed impetus and restore the faith of Nigerians in it. This audit must be comprehensive.
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