Criminals Who Aided Abacha Loot Must Be Prosecuted ― Debo Adeniran

Mr Debo Adeniran, Chairman of Centre for Anti-corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has charged anti-graft agencies to ensure that all those who aided Abacha loot must be prosecuted.

This is just as he highlighted how the $100m reportedly to be paid to a serving governor could be spent in changing the developmental state of Nigeria.

“Very soon, money will be useless when it comes to bringing people who have pillaged the resources of this country to justice.

“So, basically, the anti-corruption agencies should be circumspect and leave no stone unturned to ensure that all of the criminals that aided the Abacha regime to fritter so much money are prosecuted. And investigation should still be carried out to determine where more money could be hidden. Remember when Panama Papers came out, a lot of revelations were brought to the fore.

“The same thing with Paradise Papers! Not much has been done to retrieve all the monies that were hidden in these safe heavens and Nigerians should not treat issues of corruption with kid gloves knowing that corruption is the foundation of all our problems.

“Therefore, we should not reward corruption with further corruption. Again, nobody should be treated as being above the law. Everybody should be equal before the law. So, the President should not allow himself to be hoodwinked into allowing criminals profit from their criminality.”

Adeniran also added that “Do you know that the budgets of 20 states put together were not up to $100 million?

That means the people in those states could have survived with that amount of money. Now, on the Abacha loot and the problems it could have fixed, some people have broken it down but I don’t readily have the breakdown of what projects it could have been executed with.

However, it could have fixed several schools, it could have equipped several primary and secondary health centres, it could have fixed several roads that could help our people in the rural areas to get their farm produce to city centres.

It could have provided storage facilities for perishable goods that our people produced. It could have served as micro-credit for several aspiring small and medium scale entrepreneurs. It could have made life more abundant for millions of Nigerians.

This is what one man stole. Do you now see why people like the serving governor are so powerful and they believe that money can buy anything? But with the determination of the anti-corruption agencies headed by Mr Ibrahim Magu and Professor Bolaji Owasanoye of EFCC and ICPC respectively.

“I believe that the power of money to circumvent the cause of justice is gravitating towards nullity,” Adeniran said.