The amount represents 2.5 or 5 percent of the $151 million (about N52.8 billion) and N8 billion, recovered from three sources, following information from the whistle-blowers.
It was learnt that the Federal Ministry of Finance, is already working out modalities of payment to the whistle-blowers.
“The Ministry of Finance will approve a payment of between 2.5 percent and 5 percent of the recovered stolen funds to the three whistle-blowers, in line with the government’s whistle-blowing policy,” he said Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on Sunday, disclosed the recovery of the looted funds through a statement.
The statement, signed by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr. Segun Adeyemi, said the biggest amount of $136,676,600.51, was recovered from an account in a commercial bank, where the money was kept under a fake identity, followed by N7 billion and $15 million, from another person and N1 billion from yet another.
Mohammed, added that recovered funds do not include the $9.2 million retrieved from a former Group Managing Director, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Andrew Yakubu, which was also a dividend of the Federal Government’s whistle-blower policy.
Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had during a raid at a building in Kaduna, belonging to Yakubu, last Thursday, recovered $9.2 million and an additional £72,000 from a safe.
An impeccable source said that the $136, 676, 600.51, was kept in a lowly rated commercial bank, under an account name – Brass LNG – to avoid attracting attention.
However, with concrete evidence from the whistle-blower, and after due diligence by the officials of the Ministry of Justice, under the directive of the Minister, Abubakar Malami (SAN), it was discovered that Brass LNG Ltd, a Lagos-based company that constructs and operates a Liquefied Natural Gas plant, had nothing to do with the bank account and money.
A source who disclosed this, said the government acting on information from the whistle-blower on the said account, contacted Brass LNG Ltd, which denied maintaining the said account with the bank.
“The said money was lodged in a commercial bank, which is not even among the big banks with a fictitious name ‘Brass LNG’, to deflect attention. Perhaps, the account owner knows that he would give himself up easily, if he lodges the amount in one of the big commercial banks. “Officials of Brass LNG were contacted, and they denied knowledge of the money.
The person who owns the money is yet to come out to claim ownership, but we know his identity as an account officer was attached to the account in which the money was deposited, and the bank’s official knows the person he has been dealing with,” the source said.
It was further told, that the government has details of the operator of the account, but keeping his identity to avoid jeopardizing investigations.
The source added that; “one of the advantages of the policy is confidentiality, as Counsels to the whistle-blowers are the ones dealing with the government. So there is no fear over their safety.”
Well, the whistle-blower policy, is barely two months old and Nigerians have started feeling its impact, seeing how a few people squirreled 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,” Mohammed said.
The Federal Government’s whistle-blowing policy instituted in December last year, approved payment of not more than five percent on the recovered loot for whistle-blowers, that expose corruption related cases, and other sharp practices.
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