Buhari should apologise to Nigerians over Abacha loot – Femi Falana

A legal practitioner in Lagos, Femi Falana SAN, at the weekend demanded President Muhammadu Buhari to strengthen the anti-corruption with an apology to Nigerians on the Abacha loots which he attempted to cover up in the past. The Chairman of Human Environment Development Agenda (HEDA), Olanrewaju Suraju, in a statement on Saturday accessed by National Dailyindicated that Falana had demanded President Buhari to apologise to Nigerians on his previous statement that the former Head of State, Late Gen. Sani Abacha, did not loot the country.

National Dailylearned that Falana at HEDA’s one-day conference on, “Agenda setting for citizens’ interaction with stolen assets recovery: Abacha loot recovery and utilization as a case study,” in Abuja, emphasized that with the facts available and also given that Buhari’s administration has recovered part of the Abacha loot, it was necessary for Buhari to apologise to Nigerians for his statement.

Falana had declared: “Buhari should apologise to the country. Before he assumed power, he had said that the late Gen Sani Abacha never looted the wealth of the country. Now that it has been confirmed, now that his own administration has recovered part of the loot, it is only normal for the president to apologise that he has made a mistake.

“The government also is politically weak to take on this contest because at the end of the day, they also take some aids from these countries. So, it is difficult for the government to go after them. That is where civil society organisations come in. That is where the Nigerian people who are the victims of corruption need to come in to insist that any country that has colluded with dictators and their friends to loot the treasure of the country be made to account for it.

“We need to have an account of the money recovered so far. It is not only General Abacha, there are other recoveries that are being done. We must expand our search. We cannot be limited to 1993. Between 1988 and 1992, two dedicated accounts opened in Central Bank recorded $12.4 billion. At the end of the tenure of General Ibrahim, $2.2 billion could not be accounted for. “And that is the finding of Pius Okigbo panel instituted by the Sani Abacha junta. We need to also investigate that.

“I also know a case of $7 billion withdrawn from our foreign reserves in 2006. The money was distributed to 14 banks. We have written to the Central Bank repeatedly, and it has been totally silent.

“Happily, the presidential panel on recovery of Public Property is looking into that. So, we must recover the entire looted wealth.

“Last week, I filed an action at the Federal High Court, Abuja seeking to compel the Buhari administration to recover $40 billion and N481 billion which a government auditing agency, NEITI, confirmed. And this huge fund has not been remitted to the Federation Account.”

Suraju was said to have alleged that over $500 million recovered from the Abacha loot was re-looted. “I was expecting that by now with the facts that money was recovered under President Muhammadu, he needs to explain beyond mere apologies how he came about his initial conclusions,” Suraju had said.