The Presidency has retracted its earlier statement that the Mambilla Power and East-West Road projects would also be financed with the returned $311m Sani Abacha loot.
Excluding the Mambilla Power and the East-West Road projects presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, in a statement on Wednesday, said the recently repatriated Abacha loot would go towards three of the Federal Government’s five priority projects.
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Regretted his error Shehu said that he had “mistakenly noted” in an earlier statement that the Mambilla was one of five priority projects to benefit from the $311m Abacha loot under the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) managed by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority.
Titled ‘Three of Five FG Priority Projects to Draw from Abacha Loot,’ the statement read:
Although the Mambilla and East-West expressway are regarded under the PIDF as priority projects, I have ascertained that they are exempt from the agreement signed between the Nigerian, United States and British territory of Jersey governments.
According to the document, only the Second Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Expressway, and Lagos-Ibadan Expressway will benefit from the repatriated funds.
The funds are domiciled in the NSIA.
All print and online media should please take note of this correction and make the necessary adjustments to their previous publications on the issue.
The Federal Government, about a week ago, recovered $311 million of the alleged stolen funds by the former military ruler from the United States.
In the statement, which was signed by the Special Assistant on Media and Public relations to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Dr Umar Gwandu, Malami, the AGF, Abubakar Malami, said that the amount increased significantly from about $308 million mentioned in the earlier statement to over $311 million, as a result of interest that accrued from February 3 to April 28, when the fund was transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
It was also learnt that Nigeria is making move to repatriate another tranche of Abacha’s loots from the United Kingdom and France.
