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The Federal Government has said it will spend loots recently recovered from former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke and former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Andrew Yakubu on its social intervention programmes.
TheNewsGuru.com reports that a Lagos Federal High Court, on Thursday ordered the forfeiture of of about N34bn linked to former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke.
TheNewsGuru.com also reports that a Federal High Court sitting in Kano presided over by Justice Zainab B. Abubakar on last Tuesday ordered the forfeiture of the sum of $9,772,00 (Nine Million, Seven Hundred and Seventy Two Thousand United States Dollars ) and £74,000 (Seventy Four Thousand Pound Sterling) recovered from Yakubu to the Federal Government.
According to a report by The Punch, a top government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the $9m recovered from Yakubu and the $153m forfeited Diezani, would be immediately used to fund the welfare scheme for the poor.
The official said the money would be used in paying the N30,000 monthly stipend to beneficiaries of the N-Power scheme, the job creation programme of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration; as well as the school feeding programme.
In the official’s words: “The National Economic Forum has been meeting and we are looking at the idea of investing the recovered funds on the social intervention programme which will gulp hundreds of billions of naira.”
The Federal Government is also on a mission to recover at least N399bn and $6.62bn in cash and assets from the high profile cases being prosecuted across the country.
Documents made available from the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption showed that at least 45 high-profile corruption cases had been taken to court.
The cases stated in the document exclude the $153m recently forfeited to the Federal Government by Alison-Madueke; the $9m case involving Yakubu; the prosecution of a former Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission, Emeka Mba (N2.8bn); as well as all retired military officials (N40bn).
Some of the high-profile cases stated in the document include an alleged N36bn case involving a former Governor of Jigawa State, Saminu Turaki; a fraud case involving a former Governor of Gombe State, Senator Danjuma Goje (N25bn), and a former Governor of Nasarawa State, Aliyu Doma.
Other prominent cases listed include the Chairman of Atlantic Energy Brass Development Limited and Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Limited, Jide Omokore, who is standing trial for an alleged $1.6bn fraud; a former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Patrick Akpobolokemi, who is standing trial before two different courts for alleged N1.6bn fraud and N754.7bn fraud.
The committee also listed the case of the President, NLNG Staff Bonny Co-op Investment and Credit Society Limited, Julius Peters, who is being tried for an alleged N207bn fraud.
The committee defined high-profile cases as cases in which any of the suspects is “a politician, public officer or judicial officer; a person elected or nominated to a public office or position and where the subject matter of the case involves government property or funds.”