CRIMES COMMISSION SECURES 890 CONVICTIONS, AS NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT RECOVERS N200 BILLION IN TEN MONTHS
The town hall meeting was launched in Lagos State on April 25, 2016, to provide a platform for the federal government to regularly give an account of its stewardship to the people, get feedback and input from them
Penpushing further reports Magu in his presentation said the convictions covers period from January to October this year, adding that, this is unsurpassed by any agency anywhere in the world,recalling that the commission recorded 114 convictions in 2015, 189 convictions in 2016,190 convictions in 2017 and 312 convictions in 2018.
The commission boss said the agency has recovered hundreds of billions of Naira in various categories of asset forfeiture, stressing, “a asset recovery is key in denying the corrupt the enjoyment of the proceeds of his/her crime. It also affords the country the opportunity to channel recovered funds into national development,” he said.
Penpushing also reports that Mallami said some of the funds were recovered for third party individuals, companies, as well as government agencies such as NNPC, FIRS, AMCON and state governments, while in his own account said the federal government has collected in excess of N200 billion “multiple amongst these are the $2.5 million in partial recovery, we also got $75 million connected to the Malabu transactions.”
The Attorney General of the Federation, who was represented by an adviser to the president on financial crimes, Abiodun Ayodeji, while pointing out that the war against corruption should be seen as an existential battle, said the fight against corruption will not be successful until the process is carried out in a coordinated manner in line with best practices.
Penpushing reports that, Mallami added that the federal government is working on leveraging technology to fight corruption by creating enabling legislation and laws to permit the use of technology in fighting corruption.
The Host of the event, Lai Mohammed who is the Minister of Information and Culture said corruption in Nigeria has now been driven under the table, and that the corrupt ones can no longer flaunt the proceeds of their corruption the way they used to do in the past.
Penpushing further reports that, the Minister noted that, though the war against corruption was still in progress, boasting that the listed achievements count as a major step forward since every successful battle is a step towards winning a war.
The Minister emphasized that the fight against corruption is one of the three cardinal programmes of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, with the others being the war against insecurity and the revamping of the economy.
“The war against corruption is a war of survival for Nigeria. This is because the success of the other key programmes of the government, revamping the economy and tackling insecurity, is closely intertwined with how well the nation is able to fight corruption’.
“For as long as the nation fails to check corruption, tackling insecurity and revamping the economy will remain a mirage. In other words, the fight against corruption is pivotal to the success of the other cardinal programmes of the administration,” he said.
