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The Nigeria Government has said the USD$311 million returned Abacha loot from the US and Jersey will be utilised for vital and decades-overdue infrastructure development in the country.
Media aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, Garba Shehu, in a statement via his verified Twitter handle on Tuesday, confirmed the receipt of the said amount on Monday, May 4, 2020, stating that it was safely returned to the country from the United States.
Shehu said the ‘funds have already been allocated, and will be used in full, for vital and decades-overdue infrastructure development: The second Niger Bridge, the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna-Kano expressways – creating tens of thousands of Nigerian construction jobs and local skill which can then be useful in future projects.
He stated: “Part of the funds will also be invested in the Mambilla Power Project which, when completed, will provide electricity to some three million homes – over ten million citizens – in our country.
“The receipt of these stolen monies – and the hundreds of millions more that have already been returned from the United Kingdom and Switzerland – are an opportunity for the development of our nation, made far harder for those decades the country was robbed of these funds. “
The media aide explained that previous monies returned last year from Switzerland, some $320 million US dollars, were already being used for the government’s free school feeding scheme, a stipend for millions of disadvantaged citizens, and grain grants for those in severe food hardship.
“Without these funds, the fight against Covid-19 would be even tougher,” he added.
He stated that ‘the latest return is a testament to the growing and deepening relationship between the government of Nigeria and the government of the United States’.
Adding, “without the cooperation both from the UK Government, the US Executive branch and US Congress, we would not have achieved the return of these funds at all.”
Shehu further berated previous administration, stating that, “for years many countries deemed successive Nigerian administrations as too corrupt, too venal and too likely to squander and re-steal the stolen monies – so they did not return the funds.”
“Today, US, UK and other jurisdictions have found the partnership with the nation of Nigeria they can finally trust,” he concluded.
