The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the massive looting of the nation's treasury by public officials as hair-raising, spine-chilling and mind-boggling, saying nothing, but the total recovery of the funds will be acceptable to all patriotic Nigerians.
The party, in a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated anyone who attempted, either by deeds or words, to sabotage the recovery efforts was not a patriot and deserved nothing but public opprobrium.
The party, therefore, thanked Nigerians for their overwhelming support for the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in its tough but important task of tracing and recovering the loots, while also ensuring that the looters faced justice.
‘’It is absolutely gratifying that Nigerians are vehemently opposed to the few, who would rather have the government of the day turn a blind eye to the looted funds and, in their words, carry on with the process of governance.
‘’Truly, what sort of governance can go on if the billions of naira in a few hands are not recovered? In the first instance, the government needs every kobo of the funds it can muster to bring about the change it has promised Nigerians. Secondly, leaving such hair-raising funds in the hands of the few looters is dangerous, because they can use the funds to destabilise any government. In fact, no one will be surprised if the looters use their dirty funds to sponsor public demonstrations against the government’s determination to recover the funds.
‘’Thirdly, allowing those who privatized the commonwealth to get away is offering a thumbs-up for looting. No responsible government will do that,” APC stated.
The party stated already, the looters had embarked on a relentless and an increasingly bold campaign to discredit the government of the day and sabotage the funds’ recovery process, using newspaper columnists, ‘talking heads’ and otherwise respectable opinion leaders.
‘’They and their paid hirelings have tried to employ sophistry to muddle the waters, but Nigerians are much wiser, and will not succumb to the dirty antics of the looters’ megaphones,” it stated.
APC stated it was necessary to remind Nigerians of the kind of massive looting of the treasury that took place in the past few years, so they could better appreciate the seriousness of the issue at stake. It, therefore, listed some instances of the looting as follows: N3.8 trillion out of the N8.1 trillion earned from crude oil (2012-2015) withheld by Nigerian Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), $2.1 billion from excess crude account unaccounted for, Department of Petroleum Resources’ unremitted N109.7 billion royalty from oil firms, $6 billion allegedly looted by some ministers in the last administration, 160 million barrels of crude worth $13.9 billion lost between 2009 and 2012. Others are $15 million from botched arms deal yet to be returned to Nigeria, $13 billion in NLNG dividends mostly unaccounted for, N30 billion rice waiver and N183 billion unaccounted for by the NDDC.
The party stated the listed ‘missing’ funds constituted just a tip of the iceberg since they were mostly from a few sectors of the economy, mostly the oil sector, and were discovered even before the forensic audit now being undertaken in some key areas.
‘’The level of looting that went on in other sectors is better imagined, hence the need for all Nigerians to rally around the Buhari administration to recover the loots, bring the looters to justice and to put in place measures to prevent such looting in the future,” it stated.