PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has started tracing looted Nigerian funds numerous European countries and the US with the aim of recovering and repatriating the vast quantities of cash stashed abroad by the previous government.  

Elected on an anti-corruption platform, President Buhari promised to clamp down on kleptomania in public life and recover looted funds. According to presidency sources, the federal government has now specifically targeted the US, UK, France, Switzerland and several other countries where it believes corrupt officials have been stashing public funds. 

Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina, said:  “The next three months may be hard but billions of dollars can be recovered and we will do our best. The search will not only cover the UK, US, Switzerland, Germany and other known havens for Nigerian looted funds but will cover everywhere under the sun. 

"Anywhere and everywhere that the looted funds are, we have an assurance from the United States of America to assist us to repatriate these funds from anywhere under the sun. Everything that needs to be done to get all those funds repatriated will be done, including engaging private investigators." 

Countries where looted funds from Nigeria have been kept in the past include Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the UK, US, France, Germany, British Virgin Islands and other tax havens. Ongoing federal government investigations will identify the individuals who engaged in corrupt practices and ascertain the sums of money involved with a view to repatriating them. 

President Buhari has lamented the fact that officials of the recent past government jettisoned all financial and administrative instructions put in place in parastatals and agencies while embracing impunity, lack of accountability and financial recklessness in the management of national resources. Mr Adesina said the identification of foreign banks being used to stash stolen funds was one of the agreements reached between President Buhari and President Barak Obama at the recent G-7 summit in Germany. 

Mr Adesina added: “When the president met with the G7, the promise that the American president gave him was that Nigeria should just provide all the facts, the figures, the statistics, including the banks. He promised that if Nigeria could make the information available, then the US will help in recovering the stolen funds.” 

"In fact, the president said the government will spend the next three months identifying banks, individuals and monies that have been ferried out of this country. The assurance the president has given is that within the next three months, we have to concentrate on getting those monies back to the government coffers.” 

In the UK, the Department for International Development (DFID) has alerted President Buhari on over N1.3tn stolen during the last administration, where it is kept and who the beneficiaries are. According to the DFID, the money is a low hanging fruit that the president can pluck during his first six months in the office with the help of the UK, US, and other G7 members without hassle.