Nigeria blocks $9B in alleged looted public funds

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) - Nigeria said on Friday it has frozen bank accounts worth $9 billion suspected to have been looted from the treasury by past government officials.

“We've blocked other accounts with about $9 billion but the money is not available to us because we are still in court over them,” Nigeria’s Information Minister Lai Mohamed said at a forum in Abuja organized by the state News Agency of Nigeria, explaining how President Muhammadu Buhari’s government handles funds recovered from its anti-graft campaign.

The revelation came amid taunting by the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and critics about the state of the economy – officially in recession, as of Wednesday – and the government's much-hyped anti-corruption crusade.

The Buhari administration has arraigned on corruption charges several top public officials who were once believed untouchable. Along with several army generals and politicians, former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, a retired army colonel, is standing trial for alleged diversion of some $2 billion meant for the military.

Mohamed said the government has so far recovered 78 billion Nigerian naira ($252 million), and another $3 million from past officials, but added that such funds are not enough to jump-start the economy, which the country's bureau of statistics said slid further in the second quarter.

“The government spends 165 billion naira [$532 million] monthly on federal civil servants. So what we have so far recovered will not even pay 50 percent of the salaries for a month,” he added.