CBN To Keep Looted Funds Escrow Account

The Central Bank of Nigeria( CBN ) has concluded arrangements to warehouse all recovered looted funds in a special escrow account to be created by the apex bank, it was learnt at the weekend.
An impeccable source within bank who revealed this explained that the funds can never be lumped with other government funds at accounts citing subsisting legal implication involved in the recovered fund.
The source confirmed that quite a sizeable recovery had being made but he said he didn’t know the identities of individuals who have made the refund.
The source also said the anti- graft body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission( EFCC) which is handling all the cases has established line of communication with the bank, noting that no indicted individual makes refund directly to the bank, but the recovery was done by EFCC which in turn transfer same to the bank.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday assured curious Nigerians demanding his government to make explicit disclosures on recovered looted funds.
Buhari said Nigerians will soon know, in a short while those people that had returned their loot. He said the CBN will be mandated to release the names and amounts returned .
Speaking in a keynote address at this year’s edition of the annual Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation Lecture, Buhari said, “It is yet early days for government to make the names public as doing so might “jeopardize the possibility of bigger recoveries.”
Buhari said the fight against corruption of his government is not about him , but “about building a country where our children, and the forthcoming generations can live in peace and prosperity.”
He vowed that in waging the war, the administration would not know any friend or foe, although he was quick to add that Nigerians need not fear him, but the consequences of corruption.

Buhari stressed the need for the generality of Nigerians to get involved in the anti-graft campaign, “hate corruption with a passion, and collectively determine to root it out of our body polity.”

“Any effort to try to deal with corruption without a convinced populace will end as spasmodic, ephemeral exercise, lacking the appropriate social impact. When we are talking about corruption conventionally, it is a manifestation of the human mindset. It is the human beings that manifest corruption.
“To win the war on corruption, therefore, begins with the people accepting that there is an error to be corrected in their lives, that there is a need to refocus and re-orientate the values that we cherish and hold dear. It requires change of mindset, change of attitude and change of conduct”, he said.

Advertisements