SERAP dares accountability, as FG returns Ibori’s £4.2m loot to Delta
By Ayo Fadimu
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has vowed to pursue how Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, intends to spend the £4.2m Ibori loot, which the Accountant-General of the Federation, AGF, Mr. Ahmed Idris, said had been n transferred to Delta State Government.
In a tweet this on Tuesday evening, SERAP urged Dr. Okowa to urgently confirm if Delta State has received the £4.2m Ibori loot, challenging the governor to publish details of how the returned loot will be spent.
Earlier on Tuesday, Idris had disclosed that the Federal government has returned the looted funds by the ex-governor to the coffers of Delta State government.
It would be recalled that the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami had on March 9 said the loot would be used for the construction of the second Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kano road, and Lagos-Ibadan Express road and not returned to the Delta State Government where it was pilfered from.
The stance of the AttorneyGeneral drew a lot of criticism, the Delta State government insisted that since the loot was share of Delta State from the federal purse, it ought to be returned to the state but Malami argued that the law that was alleged to have been breached by Ibori was a federal law and that the parties of interests involved in the repatriation of the funds were national and not sub-national governments.
“The major consideration relating to who is entitled to a fraction or perhaps the money in its entirety is a function of law and international diplomacy,” Mr. Malami said during his Tuesday appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
But the Accountant-General while appearing before the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee on Tuesday said that recoveries are made by the Federal Government on behalf of states.
According to him, any recovery arising from looted funds from a particular state would go directly to the states.
“It was paid to Delta State,” he said when asked where the money was diverted to. “So such recoveries go specifically to those states. Honourable Chairman, any recovery arising from the looted funds from a particular state goes to the state. The state governors will not even allow this to fly.”
He added, “Some recoveries are for some state governments, specific state governments. I know there was a time recovery was made on behalf of Plateau State, there was one for Bayelsa, there is one for Delta,” he said when asked where the money was diverted to.
“You know they will not. They will take the Federal Government to court for holding their money. So we don’t joke or play with that, we pay them their money.”
His remarks come a week after The Federal Government announced that it had received the £4.2million seized from the associates of the convicted former governor from the United Kingdom.
