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 government assets including vehicles, buildings, generator sets and others were said to still be in the possession of the former government officials weeks after they 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 as much of Nigeria’s stolen resources as possible. 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 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 has prevailed in Nigeria over the past years of the Peoples Democratic Party’s rule. “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 properties instead of purchasing new ones for new government officials,” he said.
