Malami has recovered $1 billion in looted funds since 2015

Abubakar Malami, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, revealed that the Muhammadu Buhari administration has recovered approximately $1 billion in looted funds to date.

Malami made the announcement while briefing State House Correspondents on the week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, which was presided over by President Buhari.

The Attorney-General also stated that the Council has approved the continued use of the National Anti-corruption Strategy Document in order to maintain the administration’s anti-graft campaigns’ success.

He also claimed that the administration has increased the success rate of anti-corruption agencies in obtaining convictions, citing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which obtained 3,000 convictions in 2022 alone.

In relation to the recovery of looted funds, Malami stated that recovered funds had been distributed to various sectors of the economy, including poverty alleviation.

“As I previously stated, we have achieved and recorded tremendous success in terms of prevention, to the extent that when we came on board as a government, for example, only 109 convictions had been recorded from the inception of major government agencies saddled with the responsibility of fighting corruption, spanning more than 10 years as at the time we came.”

“However, in terms of convictions, we are now recording successes to the point where a single government agency, for example, the EFCC, has recorded over 3,000 convictions within a year, and I’m talking about 2022.” So, if your yardstick is to determine what success looks like in terms of convictions recorded, the yardstick is that we have succeeded in moving convictions to the next level, from 109 convictions in over ten years by previous administrations to over 3000 convictions in a year by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

“From other perspectives, such as those related to the recovery of looted assets, President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has recovered approximately $1 billion since its inception to date.”

“With precision, you will recall that in 2017, the sum of over 300 million was indeed recovered from Switzerland, which monies were eventually deployed in the reduction of poverty, in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment, which in effect gave rise to what we had as NPower, Trader Money, among other multiple programs that President Muhammadu Buhari’s government put in place,” he said.

Malami explained that the same document had been adopted for the period 2017-2022 and had been extremely successful in combating corruption, thus the FEC’s decision to extend it to 2022-2026.