Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami has revealed the Muhammadu Buhari administration has so far recovered about $1 billion looted funds to date.

Malami disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents after the week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, which was presided over by President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The Attorney-General also disclosed that Council has approved further use of the National Anti-corruption Strategy Document to sustain the successes so far recorded in the administration’s anti-graft campaigns.

He also said the administration has multiplied the success rate at which the anti-corruption agencies have been securing convictions, citing the case of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which recorded 3,000 convictions in 2022 alone.

Speaking to the issue of recovery of looted funds, Malami also disclosed that recovered funds had been deployed to various sectors of the economy including poverty alleviation.

“As I stated, in terms of prevention, we have succeeded and recorded tremendous success, to the extent that as at the time we came on board as a government, for example, only 109 convictions were recorded from the inception of major agencies of government that were saddled with the responsibility of the fight against corruption, spanning over a period of more than 10 years as at the time we came.

“But today, we are recording successes in terms of convictions to the extent that a single agency of government, if you take for example, the EFCC, within a year, I’m talking of 2022, we have recorded over 3,000 convictions. So if you are looking at corruption from the perspective of conviction, if your yardstick is to determine what success is in terms of convictions have been recorded, the yardstick is that we have succeeded in moving the convictions to the next level from the point of 109 convictions in over 10 years, by previous administrations, to a point of over 3000 convictions within a year by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Then if you are looking at it from other perspectives, for example, perspectives related to the recovery of the looted assets, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has succeeded in recovering around $1 billion from its inception to date.

“You will recall, with precision, that in 2017, the sum of over 300 million was indeed recovered from Switzerland, which monies were eventually deployed in the reduction of poverty, in line with the commitment of President Muhammadu Buhari, which in effect gave rise to what we had as NPower, Trader Money, among other multiple programme that were put in place by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari”, he said.

Speaking on the approval of the Council for the National Anti-corruption Strategy Document, Malami explained the same document had been adopted for the period 2017-2022 and had made the fight against corruption really successful, hence the decision of FEC to allow it to run from 2022-2026.

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