THERE is at least one billion dollar Abacha loot still lying in Swiss accounts, former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has stated, just as he blamed the World Bank for contributing to the problems of Nigeria.
Obasanjo made this startling revelation on Tuesday in Warri, Delta State, while making remarks on leadership as the major factor affecting the growth of the nation. The former president was chairman at a lecture organised in honour of Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, as part of the series of programmes organised to mark his 40th year in ministry, which was held at the basement of the international auditorium of Word of Life Bible Church, Ajamimogha Street, Warri.
While responding to a question posed on corruption, Obasanjo derided the World Bank for only being able to blackmail countries like Nigeria as corrupt, but doing little to give away names of the corrupt individuals, the amount stolen and where the monies are kept in foreign accounts.
He blamed the bank for making Nigeria poorer by misleading her into introducing the Structural Adjustment Programme during the General Ibrahim Babangida regime even when it knew it would spell doom for the country.
“When I was president, I called the World Bank. I said, please, give me the list of the amount that has been stolen, where is it kept and who the beneficiaries are. I never got anything from the World Bank thereafter. We have on our own decided that we will investigate and get from one family, Abacha family alone,” he revealed.
“From the Abacha family alone, we recovered millions of dollars. I got 1.25 billion dollars (100m pounds); and the lawyer in Swizerland (he is still there), who was doing it for us, said, when I was leaving, that if we worked harder, there was still, at least, one billion dollars that we can get from that family alone,” he maintained, adding that only an insincere and mad person will not acknowledge that there is corruption in Nigeria.
Taking a swipe at the World Bank, the former president said: “It is the same World Bank who came to us and said ‘Structural Adjustment Programme was good.’ Of course, it only made us poorer. We said SAP would make us poorer, they said ‘No.’ We went for it and we are poorer today. And then they came to tell us that we did not do it the way they wanted us to do it. Many years later, they accepted that we were right and they were wrong.”
He querried the inability of antigraft bodies in the country to bite as it happened during his regime. “I am not saying we are not corrupt. As a nation, we are corrupt, but are we doing something about it? I once heard people, during my regime, saying that the fear of Ribadu was the beginning of wisdom but today, there is no longer any wisdom,” he averred.
Guest Speaker of the lecture entitled “The Nigeria of my Dreams: Towards the Consolidation of National Unity,” Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, during his presentation, took participants through the labyrinth of the evolution of the Nigerian state, the undoings of its early leaders and their attendant effects on subsequent leaders as well as various forms of manifestations of failures of leadership in the country, among others.
Professor Akinyemi also flayed the political elite, who held sway in early post-Independent era, blaming them for not making efforts to “reach a broad consensus on the fundamental values that should be the overriding principles of governance, in order to make life more abundant for all, cater for the poor, increase opportunities for all, provide safety net for the widow and the orphan and reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, between the South and the North and between the haves and the have nots.,
According to the diplomat, leaders had refused to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, thereby trivialising public offices, adding that the principles of zoning and federal character, especially as it affected Justice Jombo-Ofo, who was denied being sworn in at the Court of Appeal, based on being appointed on the quota of Abia State because of marriage, was not only rididulous but absurd.
Professor Akinyemi stressed on the need for the elite to seek a consensus that would emphasise policies and values and engender unity, protection of the poor, orphans and widows.
He also sought values that would de-emphasise religious bigotry, greed and indecent flaunting of wealth.
Dignitaries at the lecture included Chief Ebenezer Obey-Fabiyi, Deacon Gamaliel Onosode and Professor Jim Omatseye.
Meanwhile, as the United States government mounts pressure on the Federal Government to prosecute all those indicted in the Halliburton bribery scandal, it has equally released further information that could assist the government.
Informed sources exclusively disclosed to the Nigerian Tribune that the US government had further threatened to sanction the Federal Government if all those involved in the scandal were not brought to book.
The United States listed the names of the beneficiaries of the bribery scandal and the banks in the country where the money was kept.
According to the source, the United States government was insisting that if it could try Halliburton officials and convict them, there was nothing stopping Nigeria from doing same.
It further added that this was a singular test for the Federal Government to know if it was sincere in its fight against corruption.
The source revealed that a former Chief of Air Staff collected a total sum of $70 million through his company, Tri-star in trains one and two, while $40 million was collected in trains three and four and paid to the cronies of a former head of state.
Also, $35 million was collected on trains five and six by the cronies of a former president.
Furthermore, Malabo Oil, belonging to a former petroleum minister, got a share of $2 million.
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