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-emphasis 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.
