Buhari Moves to Recover Govt Property From Jonathan's Aides, Sacked Officials
With eyes focused on repatriating stolen public funds from offshore bank accounts, President Muhammadu Buhari has extended his search to more immediate task of recovering of non-cash public property from former government officials.
Presidency sources revealed at the weekend that several former government officials are still in possession of vehicles, buildings, generator sets and other items that were allocated to them, months after vacating such privileged offices.
"Despite vacating their offices almost three months ago, many are yet to return these government properties. To this effect, government has set up a committee made up civil servants and security agencies to recover unreturned public assets from the political appointees who just left office", the source disclosed.
This is seen to be no surprise as Buhari has repeatedly declared his intention to chase after government property, cash and materials wherever they are stashed by officials of the immediate past administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, confirmed the newest dimension in the anti-graft war of his boss, but would not disclose membership of the committee or their most pressing targets.
According to him: "That is precisely the case. Even here at the Villa, there are cars and other property belonging to the government which are yet to be returned."
He stressed that the Buhari administration would soon begin to demand for the return of these assets.
Shehu, however, clarified that the intention was not to embarrass anyone from the past administration but simply to get them to return government properties in their possession to government.
"The properties belong to the Nigerian people. We are not trying to humiliate anyone by asking them to return their cars or houses."
When asked whether the state and local governments were facing similar challenges with retrieving government property from their predecessors, Malam 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 has prevailed in Nigeria over the past years that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in charge of government.
Butressing the imperative of the action, Shehu said, "change has come; that's 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".
Presidency sources revealed at the weekend that several former government officials are still in possession of vehicles, buildings, generator sets and other items that were allocated to them, months after vacating such privileged offices.
"Despite vacating their offices almost three months ago, many are yet to return these government properties. To this effect, government has set up a committee made up civil servants and security agencies to recover unreturned public assets from the political appointees who just left office", the source disclosed.
This is seen to be no surprise as Buhari has repeatedly declared his intention to chase after government property, cash and materials wherever they are stashed by officials of the immediate past administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, confirmed the newest dimension in the anti-graft war of his boss, but would not disclose membership of the committee or their most pressing targets.
According to him: "That is precisely the case. Even here at the Villa, there are cars and other property belonging to the government which are yet to be returned."
He stressed that the Buhari administration would soon begin to demand for the return of these assets.
Shehu, however, clarified that the intention was not to embarrass anyone from the past administration but simply to get them to return government properties in their possession to government.
"The properties belong to the Nigerian people. We are not trying to humiliate anyone by asking them to return their cars or houses."
When asked whether the state and local governments were facing similar challenges with retrieving government property from their predecessors, Malam 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 has prevailed in Nigeria over the past years that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in charge of government.
Butressing the imperative of the action, Shehu said, "change has come; that's 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".
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