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America’s President Barack Obama has advised Nigeria to deal directly with his country rather than use private entities in its efforts to track and repatriate looted funds.
This formed part of the discussion between Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and his American counterpart on the sidelines of the just concluded 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the country’s Foreign Affairs minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, said at a press conference on Sunday.
While in New York, Buhari met with President Obama, Swiss President and the minister of justice to discuss the issue of funds looted from Nigeria and stashed in different counties of the world.
Buhari also met with the United Nation’s Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon where advocated for the establishment of a UN youth Agency.
“Mr President and his Swiss counterpart looked at the modalities of restitution of some of the stolen funds totalling over 300 million Swiss Franc from Nigeria into that country.
“We are also already looking at how we are going to use some of these funds, particularly the one with the Swiss government for the benefit of the country.
“With the American government, we also discussed going forward and what we need to do and how they can help us trace looted fund and repatriation of those funds.
”It was interesting to note that President Barack Obama advised us to be careful with whom we employ to help us identify those stolen funds because there have been cases where some private legal practitioners and lawyers have been used to help us.
“His advice was that we should actually deal directly with the U. S government and I think this was a very important advice.
“I think that also is very good for us so, we cut off middle men and it also showed U.S. commitment in helping us in this context,’’ Onyeama said.
Since taking over the reins of office, Buhari has been on a crusade to recover funds stolen by officials of previous administrations. In June this year, the Nigerian government announced that it had recovered assets and funds totalling $9.1billion in its anti-corruption drive
Nigeria is also chasing a large chunk of funds looted by late military head of state, General Sani Abacha domiciled in Swiss bank. The Swiss government a couple of months ago in Abuja signed a memorandum of understanding to commence the repatriation of $321m from the second batch of the Abacha loot. It said it repatriated $722m in 2005 as part of the first tranche.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Affairs minister also said the Nigerian government is advocating for the establishment of a youth agency by the United Nations that would cater for the increasing needs of youth across the world .
The UN has already established an agency for women to address issues of gender equality and women empowerment. The world body also has in place an agency to protect the right of children.
Onyeama, said the Nigerian leader advocated this during his bilateral meeting of Heads of State and Governments with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, because of the increasing youth population especially in Nigeria.
“Mr President was the only leader among the heads of state and governments that made the specific point that Nigeria will be pushing for the establishment of a UN agency dedicated exclusively to the youth.
“He also made a point on the importance of giving attention to the youth; a lot of countries including Nigeria, have a large population being below the age of 35 and we really have to address what they call the “youth bulge’’ in the area of education and job opportunities” Onyeama said.
