Whistleblowers Rake In $160mn, N8bn For Nigeria

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed said the Federal Government’s Whistleblowing policy has yielded $151 million and  N8 billion in looted funds.

Alhaji Mohammed, in a statement signed by Segun Adeyemi, the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister, said the looted funds were recovered via the clues provided by three whistleblowers who gave actionable information to the office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation.

The biggest amount of $136,676,600.51 was recovered from an account in a commercial bank, where the money was kept under an apparently fake account name.

This was followed by the recovery of  N7 billion and $15 million from another person and N1 billion from yet another.

The recovered loots do not include the $9.2 million in cash allegedly owned by Mr. Andrew Yakubu, former Group Managing Director of NNPC, which was also a dividend of the whistleblower policy.

All the monies recovered so far totalled over $160million.

”When we told Nigerians that there was a primitive and mindless looting of the national treasury under the last administration, some people called us liars. Well, the whistle-blower policy is barely two months old and Nigerians have started feeling its impact, seeing how a few people squirrelled away public funds. It is doubtful if any economy in the world will not feel the impact of such mind-boggling looting of the treasury as was experienced in Nigeria.

”Yet whatever has been recovered so far, including the $9.2 million by the EFCC, is just a tip of the iceberg,” Mohammed said.

He appealed to Nigerians with useful information on looted funds to continue to provide the authorities with such information, saying confidentiality will be maintained with regards to the source of the information.

The Minister also reminded Nigerians of the financial reward aspect of the policy, saying ”If there is a voluntary return of stolen or concealed public funds or assets on the account of the information provided, the whistle blower may be entitled to anywhere between 2.5% (Minimum) and 5.0% (Maximum) of the total amount recovered”