By Igbotako Nowinta Alltimepost, Nigeria Bureau Chief,
Nigeria as a nation loses about 40% of its national wealth to corruption and corruption-related mismanagement; and 91.8 million Nigerians live in extreme poverty – World Poverty Clock 2019, according to the Executive Director of Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Rev. David Ugolor.
Ugolor made this known while speaking during the Monitoring Transparency and Accountability in the use of Returned Assets (MANTRA) Project’s Learning Summit, organized by ANEEJ at the Barcelona Hotel, Abuja on Thursday October 15, 2020.
Ugolor said that in the past three years, ANEEJ and its eight partners drawn from the six geo-political zones of Nigeria have mobilized over 800 community based organizations, crisscrossing the length and breath of the country and beyond.
The key objectives, according to him include advocating for the return of assets stashed in foreign jurisdictions, carrying out end-to-end monitoring of use of returned assets, and advocating for reforms in the assets return.
“Specifically, ANEEJ and its partners have worked collaboratively with Nigerian government to carry out end-to-end monitoring of the use of $322.5million Abacha ll returned from Switzerland and being spent for poor Nigerians enrolled under the Conditional Cash Transfer of the Social Investment Programme, the $311.9 Abacha lll returned from Jersey and the United States of America being spent on three infrastructural projects, the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Express Road, Lagos-Ibadan Dual Carriage Road and the Second Niger Bridge.
“We are also following developments on the €5.5 million being returned from Ireland also to be deployed to the three aforementioned infrastructural projects,” Ugolor said.
The historic occasion was attended by Hajia Mariam Uwais, Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, Mrs. Juliet Ibebaku-Nwangu, Special Adviser to the President on Justice Reform & International Relations, esteemed development partners; Chief Executives of various Civil Society and Non-State Actors; project beneficiaries across the country; gentlemen of the press and members of donor’s community.
ANEEJ is a leading Non-governmental organization working on anti-corruption and extractive industries in Nigeria.
