 Welcome back and to our first major conversation on breakfast this morning Nigeria's federal government recovered over 3.2 billion now that's about 6.3 million pounds of stolen monies from various jurisdictions globally is a stolen government funds you know from various jurisdictions globally from March 2021 to May 2022. Now this is as the federal government of Nigeria generated a total of 1.82 billion now from the sale of bid forms an actual sale of a feeder properties in the first 18 months of the Buhari administration the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Aboka Malame disclosed this of these two journalists on Thursday at a 46th session of the state house briefing organized by the presidential communications team at the ASU Rock Villa that's a good one. Now according to the minister the recovered foreign loot has since been dispersed into key infrastructure projects nationwide they include the second Niger bridge the Abuja Kanu Road and the Lagos Ibanu Expressway. He also says that the Justice Ministry has supported the federal government in various infrastructure funding agreements while lamenting that the country currently grapples with 329 billion now of funding gap. Joining us to analyze this we have Shigun Shopitoh he's a public affairs analyst and chairman of ACT Network Ikeja. Shigun Shopitoh Shigun Shopitoh good morning to you and thank you very much for your time. Good morning. Thank you very much. Are you surprised and comfortable with the fact that the Attorney General of the Federation is discussing fiscal matters? Very little surprised people that are king watchers of events in the country as far as this administration is concerned. If there's anything that is clear it's that we're running it free for all. I'm not even sure we can say we're running a government because you know the fundamental duties that government have this administration have been failing consistently at them across all levels. So you know to find an update coming from the Attorney General about recovered funds well it might not be too out of time because I think he's approaching it because or he's speaking about it because the agencies that handle that work reports to him you know but obviously what we need to hear is a total inventory and like an audit report on this entire situation from the beginning of this administration till now because this is one of the fundamental promises that this government came on it's one of the tripod of three key areas of action that this government promised anti-corruption and obviously recovery of loot is a fundamental part of the fight against corruption you know so but there appears to be a bit of confusion of roles can forgive it I think the important thing is to see that yes some loot is being recovered and that it is being applied properly and appropriately in manners that will benefit the majority of the people. Reason I'm asking this is that in 2021 the House of Reps panel alleged that the Central Bank of Nigeria illegally paid two billion Naira from these recovered loot to the Attorney General of the Federation this was in 2021. Also in 2021 the Attorney General came out to defend himself he says that his ministry was making efforts to ensure that they are allocated some cost of collection from recovered of funds to finance the recovery operations in otherwise they need this money to some of this money to be able to go after more money so there seems to be some suspicion you know surrounding how these funds are recovered and used by the Attorney General and some would say that when it comes to fiscal matters in terms of financial appropriation everything maybe we should be hearing from the Minister of Finance even though she's not exactly very popular right now so that's why I asked a question. Yeah I mean look you have a point but I wouldn't necessarily worry about the fact that the Attorney General is giving this report I think it's very well within his right because he's going to supervise him those recoveries. What I think also ought to happen and ought to be happening regularly and periodically if this government were truly sincere about its fight against corruption is that there needs to be a report a regular report from the Auditor General to Nigerians given a rundown of loots that have been recovered and what's been done with it you know and that has never happened never you know so you actually we laugh about these things even though they're not funny but you know there's a new word in the dictionaries, reloot it's a Nigerian thing you know how do you reloot so loot is recovered and then people steal the loot that has been recovered so we now created the word called relooting so the loot has been relooted you know it's terrible you know but it's a reality so because of those types of things you know this president you know it's just been a cataclysmic failure from this man because everything that he said he stood for has turned out to be a lie how can we have a president that is claiming to be an anti-corruption campaigner overseeing this type of confusion does anybody know how much has actually been recovered since 2015 does anybody know I've looked for it I've researched it and you just find different figures and you find a situation where different organs of government different tiers of government are fighting for their own share of this loot you know so it's it's it's all it's it's all just a mess well sure piton let's also look at this now and it's a concern and it's a question that a lot of Nigerians are asking what business do we have boring I mean if we have recovered 3.2 billionaire now we can't really say that this is all that we have recovered because we don't have all of the information just like you have mentioned from a certain period but what business do we still have boring because recently there's also been reports that Niger has borrowed 2.45 trillionaire from the central bank of Niger despite the fiscal risk and we also hear of the warning so my question is what business do we have boring if we have recovered this amount and we have several amount that has been recovered that we do not know why do we constantly say we don't have money for instance you also have the government saying if you look at the asset situation there's been a lot of talk about ask you we can't borrow 1.1 trillionaire you know to for an asset and all of that that's my question to you well the reality that confronts us is that our government is broke and our government has been broke for a long time even before this administration came on board I remember I called the former finance minister want Nigerians to be there for tough times ahead because government was broke and this was in 2014 eight years ago so so why is government borrowing they recovered look if you take the entirety of all of the money that have been stolen over the years I think some foreign journalistic organization did the figure and it was some really mind boggling was running into trillions of dollars not merit of dollars so yes if you're able to track all of that and bring it back home maybe would not be as broke as we are able to track all of that and and and and bring it back home then maybe the budget deficits that we consistently run would be unnecessary but the reality is you you can track all of that and you can bring it all back a lot of it is gone and it's gone for good so for me we really shouldn't be looking at the issue of the loot yes looted funds we need to get them back because some money but this country is blessed with resources whether you want to talk about natural resources whether you want to talk about human resources we're blessed and we have the capacity to create wealth that is completely on top and and that's consistent governments and subsequent government are constantly failed to do the revenue profile of our government can be easily quadrupled in a very short period if we have sincere leaders let me give you an example just a couple of days ago the minister of state for petroleum came out again to say that about four hundred four hundred thousand barrels per day of crude is been stolen every day from this country which amounts to depending on who's reporting anything between one billion dollars to two billion dollars per month analyze that and you're talking of twelve billion dollars to twenty four billion dollars per annum it's it's it's about thirty percent of our entire export profile is being stolen and that is the part of it that the government officials themselves are reporting the volume of stolen crude is way higher than that there's a lot of unreported inventory of crude in that value chain and that's just for crude oil alone you know so we're simply we're running a government that is like a basket there's so much money out there for government to make and then to run the business of governance and to run development and to run infrastructure development and to run human capital development investing in education and that's investing in health care but all of that money gets missing you know in the pipeline you know it just people just have plugged holes have made holes in the pipeline and they're just simply siphoning what they can and that then leaves us with the so-called revenue that we can see and then government begins to borrow otherwise we really have no reason to borrow given given where we are in every country borrows but the point is that the revenue that you generate should be comfortably sufficient to meet your repayment obligations and of course it's no longer news that last month it was reported that we now have more repayment obligations than the revenue that are close to the federal government which is why you know some people say the government's bankrupt right yes I hear some people use the word junk to describe the economy shaggy shop it on whilst you know Malami is facing the press and and revealing information about recovery of looted funds stashed abroad you've also said of course that you have more you know than what is being talked about right now but we must can we also spray thought for the special presidential panel on asset recovery aka spa the special presidential panel on asset recovery which was created by mr. president for the purposes clearly stated in its name and but last year in May 2021 the prosecutor of this special presidential panel had accused them about Malami essay and the minutes of justice of them demanding for their case files and refusing to return them I don't know whether there's anything in a special about having the case files you know that he for instance he made an allegation that the NMPC had allegedly stashed 60 billion dollars of public funds in United States was last year and he said efforts by the panel to recover the funds were reportedly frustrated by the minutes of justice in question we're talking about now who he claimed retrieved the case file from the body you know is what he said he said he showed about 20 documents to back his claims that he said that most of the case files prosecuted by the presidential panel were unsuccessful because the minister requested for the case files and never returned them and what's going on why are we not hearing from the special presidential panel on asset recovery you know in such a forum when this is being discussed you know before the press you know the same panel at the point accused the FCC of illegally appropriating some of the recovered assets this was about two years ago there but so again you know this just speaks to the the rot the complete rottenness of the entire system and the fact that nothing that is going on right now is about you and I nothing nothing that is going on with with the attorney general Malami nothing that is going on even with this so-called special presidential panel nothing that the FCC is doing is about the Nigeria you know all of these people as far as I'm concerned simply a gang of people sitting in those places feathering their own nests and taking care of their own interest and looking after vested interest and looking after the interest of oligarchs and maybe as some people would like to say in recent times of our field and lots you know people just sit appropriate our common wealth and then distribute them and at their discretion as they didn't fit and that's what this is all about and that's why you don't have any transparency you don't have any accountability and you don't have so if I as a civil society activist and this is not I'm not just saying this this is something we have done my organization accountability candle and transparency network has actually done a number of freedom freedom of information and requests to the Ministry of Agriculture in one on one occasion to the Ministry of Transportation on another occasion and a number of others like that demanding for information for the public consumption on some of the projects that they were executing and you know the response we got was pretty much no response you know so they would say well you know this in one occasion they said they've already made a publication to the public you can look for it on another one you know they just said they're looking into it and they get back to us and of course they never did so it will then be holding us to then go to court and try to compel them to respond to these requests government is run in a very opaque manner with a lot of cloudiness and shadowiness deliberately so that we don't know what's happening and that's what you have with Malami why would Malami collect case files and then the case files cannot be returned why obviously there is a cover up I don't think you know some of these things are not as perfect and they're not mysteries it's obvious what is happening and I think that's why Nigerians really really need to rise up and and ensure that we make better decisions going forward we really really really need to begin to see a situation where one we put people in government in government positions who care about the people and two that we engage even with those people even if you have people in government that are sincere and that are people of integrity that mean well and want to do well there's something about the power that you gain when you enter public office and it's not just in Nigeria that pushes the average human being in the wrong direction of morality and it is therefore the duty of society to continue to make demand and insist on accountability and insist on transparency and insist that they provide information to the public otherwise you won't you know so so what you have here with all of this loot and you know is the money keeps coming in and it just gets it keeps disappearing so for example the the state government last year sued the federal government that the federal government was wrongly applying the about 1.8 trillion you know recovered loot that had come in at that time and they wanted the court to declare that that money should go into the federal accounts rather than the consolidated revenue account that belongs to the federal government why are they doing that because they want their own share of the loot they want their own share of the booty they want to you know to have a chunk of the money you know so this is what it's all about it's really unfortunate for Nigerians to wake up and understand that these guys are not acting fast. I like the fact that you have mentioned that Nigerians need to let's get to this now because we'll cost this conversation down in no time I mean I like the fact that you have raised concern that Nigerians need to be on top of the situation I mean ensure that you know the people are accountable the question here is how how and what can we do as a government different stakeholders to ensure that this funds that have been recovered are not looted because that's the question I mean the several we can't even go to the list of funds that have been recovered just within this administration foreign funds that have been recovered but the question that everyone is asking is where are these resources where have they been kept if we say we have funds that have been recovered or we have this covered that is yet to be recovered and has been recovered where they're kept what have been they've been used to do what have we used them to do we don't have we don't seem to have like a list where we can just look up and say hey we recovered you know 3.2 billionaire from Switzerland for instance and we recovered XYZ and all of that so but how can we you know ensure that there's accountability of looted funds now amongst different stakeholders there are several things that we can do but all of that will lie with the public and I think with you guys the fourth estate of the realm it really has to be a combination of action in the civic space civil society the media and you know just the general public and you know so what we need to do is to continue to consistently ask questions we simply don't do enough of this in fact we don't do it at all only very very few people that represent a small, mini-school percentage of the civic space are making this effort to throw a challenge to the middle class you know people that have enough resources people that are not necessarily pursuing that are not living from hand to mouth they're not a large percentage but they control enough resources if they have the will to be able to put this fight up we need to ask questions we need to ask questions consistently we need to put out more freedom and information requests to more government agencies and more ministries and more pastors to the presidency to the legislature demanding answers of course they are not going to respond and you know this is what we keep saying to ourselves oh it's a pointless effort you send in this letter they will not respond I just narrated our experience one ministry responded and another one did not but we have to go beyond this we have to keep asking and when they don't answer we have to go to the next step and tell them the more we put in actions like this and then the more they will begin to see that oh these people are waking up asking questions and that will raise a consciousness in them to be more careful and then they will be you know the impunity the level of impunity will reduce and then from the point of view of the media we need to see a whole lot more of investigative journalism I know that the media space is also under attack government agencies are finding TV stations because they don't investigate reports and they put information out there but we can't stop so when these things happen members of the public will speak and fight for the media as well because if we don't do this and we just allow the opacity to continue then people will wake up to have a situation where government just they continue to get to a blue murder at the expense of the larger society and we can see the results the evidence of what I'm saying is in where we are today as a country the country is I don't think we've ever had this but whether it's across the economy, whether it's in terms of security whether it's education, healthcare everything is just everything seems to have grant records so the evidence is there that things are not looking good for us and we cannot continue to behave the way we behave so members of the middle class need to do more we need to wake up and understand that no government even if you bring the most sincere and honest human being to become president today that person will not act in the common good if he is not put on his toes by a questioning and discerning public and activating his citizens this is the key we need to become more active we need to be engaged with the government system it's not just about thinking it's about asking questions before, during and after the vote Interesting it's indeed about asking questions before, during and after the vote I'm also asking questions about in conjunction with the minister of finance and budget attempting to make the president approve the withdrawal of Paris club refunds to pay contractors to the $418 million dollars and these contracts I would say didn't follow the process of approval you have some members of the federal executive council vocally opposing this, the likes of Tunde Fashella and boss Mustafa seeking to get these monies back and then people begin to ask more questions about his motives Thank you very much for your time It's a public affairs analyst and chairman of ACT Network we have more conversations up next, merci Well we take a break now, when we return we'll be looking at the fact that the Premier League is here and of course the gains are the Falcons that's it, I was going to say the Super Falcons but of course we have the Falcons it's a long time coming, stay with us when we return the conversation continues right here