President Muhammadu Buhari has concluded plans to recover
all government property still in possession of government
officials who served under former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Federal Government’s assets including vehicles, buildings,
generator sets and others were said to still be in the possession
of the former government officials weeks after they had left
office.
Irked by the development, Buhari was said to have set up a
committee made up of civil servants and security agencies to
identify and recover the unreturned public assets from the
former political appointees.
The development is in continuation of ongoing efforts of the
President to reclaim Nigeria’s stolen resources.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and
Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, confirmed the development to
journalists on Sunday.
He said, “That is precisely the case. Even here at the
Presidential Villa, there are cars and other property belonging to
the government,which are yet to be returned.
“The property belong to the Nigerian people. We are not trying
to humiliate anyone by asking them to return their cars or
houses.”
The presidential spokesman however did not disclose the
identities of former government officials said to be still in
possession of government property.
But he expressed the conviction that the committee set up by
the President would recover all the government assets.
When asked whether the state and local governments were
facing similar challenges with retrieving government property
from their predecessors, Shehu said that he was not in a
position to confirm or deny this.
He added, however, that he would not be surprised if that was
the case, as this attitude of holding on to government property
even after leaving office must be a natural outcome of the
culture of impunity that prevailed in Nigeria over the past years
of the Peoples Democratic Party’s regime.
“But change has come. That is why we have to do things
differently now. Imagine how much Nigeria will save by
retrieving and re-using these government property instead of
purchasing new ones for new government officials,” he said.