Following the Federal Government’s move to publish the amount recovered thus far under the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration, a wide majority of the citizens have called for the release of looters’ names.
The Presidency in a statement released last night has explained its position on the request of the citizens. in the statement, the presidency defended its decision to keep names of those who returned the funds secret as it noted that publishing the names could hinder further return from those contemplating the idea. The presidency also noted that some of those who returned money were in no way guilty of any offence.
According to a top Presidency source who spoke to Sunday vanguard, the Buhari-led administration is happy to have recovered as much as $9 billion without court visits.
He further said: “This thing is ongoing and one of the reasons why we did not release the names was that without going to court we were able to retrieve all that amount of money. If you release names, other people who want to do voluntary returns will not do so. What we need is the money and not the names”
He explained further: “Secondly, many of those who returned the money are not necessarily guilty. For instance, if my party gave me money to go and campaign in an election, how am I to know that that money was from an illicit source?
“For instance if money is given to a newspaper for publication, you cannot criminalise the newspaper because it did not know where the money came from. If the newspaper returns the money would it be fair to publicise the name of the newspaper.
“If you listen to the mob you will just end up in the ditch. The practical thing is that we want more money to come in. And we don’t even know what are the terms of the agreement by which anybody returned money.
“So, for those who are saying that we ought to release the names, they got it completely wrong; it would be counterproductive. In fact, some people could go to court suing us for defamation and libel and then the whole essence would be lost and all people would be talking would be about the court cases. That is not what Nigeria needs now. What Nigeria needs now is to be focused and “we believe we have taken the right step in letting Nigerians know how much has been recovered, $9 billion without going to court”.