A Nigerian anti-corruption organisation has called on the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that stolen funds recently recovered by the government are not looted back “by the incurably corrupt elements that are clearly still lurking around in very powerful positions in the present government”.
CACOL suggested “life imprisonment for convicts that stole any amount above 1 billion naira”, advising that big thieves “should be made to work diligently for their own upkeep via whatever skills they possess previously or has been able to learn behind the bars”.
“They should be used as objects to educate the young, the youth and all when they go on excursion to the prisons, seeing former corrupt leaders in such situation will certainly serve to deter the potentially corrupt. Furthermore, whatever assets traced to such convicts should be deemed to be proceeds of corruption and confiscated by the Nigerian state,” said the Executive Chairman of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, CACOL, Mr. Debo Adeniran.
Mr. Adeniran praised the war against corruption being ruthlessly pursued by the Buhari administration but said the recovered funds should not be stolen, rather, he added, they should be channelled back to the original projects or purposes for which they were meant for.
“In cases where the original projects have been fixed, such funds should be put in Treasury Single Account (TSA) and used for other important needs of the nation,” .Mr. Adeniran, a social crusader for several decades, said in a statement to SimonAtebaNews.
“It would a double tragedy if recovered funds/loots end-up getting re-looted by the incurably corrupt elements that are clearly still lurking around in very powerful positions in the present government.
The processes involved in the recovery must be transparent and accountable,” Mr. Adeniran said.
“If the funds get re-looted, then, all the anti-corruption efforts of the government and the people may just add up to plunging energy into a process that ends futility,’’ he added.
To avoid that double tragedy, the CACOL Chairman said, “we call on all Nigerians to monitor the processes of loot recovery to forestall any attempt for corruption to get back what it lost ‘at the roundabouts on the swings’”.
Mr.Adeniran said “beyond the recovery of loots, the Federal government and the anti-corruption agencies should ensure that convicted corruption criminals are dealt with punitively within the rule of the law”.
“The anti-corruption drive must yield impactful results in terms of utilisation of recovered loots and in the achievement of convictions of corrupt elements; these will draw more popular support, credibility and confidence for the anti-corruption drive,’’ he said.