Money recovered due to the anti-corruption fight by the Nigerian government will be used in funding about 20% of the country’s 2017 budget.
The Special Assistant on Prosecution to the president, Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla stated this in Abuja, while speaking to journalists at the Headquarters of Nigeria’s governing party, the All Progressives Congress, APC .
At the APC headquarters, he also presented a book he wrote titled “APC: The coming of a change agent” to the party’s national chairman, Mr. John Oyegun.
He explained that the money will have to go through some processes before it used for the budget.
“We cannot spend this money without going to the national assembly for permission but about 20% of the 2017 budget will be financed from our recovery efforts,” he said.
Mr. Obono-Obla added that the process of plea bargaining has helped the government recover a lot of stolen funds.
“At the appropriate time, the office of the AGF will release the names of those who have done plea bargaining. Through plea bargaining, we have recovered a lot of Nigeria’s money. Without that plea bargaining, these people can fight us to the Supreme Court and you know how slow the judicial process is; which means we could be in court for up to 20 years but we need money to revamp the economy,” he explained.
Mr. Obono-Obla, who was a member of APC merger committee when the party was being formed, said the purpose of the book was to tell the story of APC’s history and how the party was created.
He added that the book highlights mistakes made by the previous governing party, the Peoples Democratic party, PDP, warning that the APC not make the same errors.
APC’s National Chairman, Mr. Oyegun, who received the book, promised that his party will not repeat the PDP mistakes.
“We created a machine that has started a significant move in entrenching democracy in this country. What is democracy? It is the ability to hire and fire. It was the first time that Nigerians had the ability of firing and it has become internalized in our political psyche. We know that we should not make the mistakes of the PDP. We too now know that we can be fired and that is democracy,” Oyegun said.
