The speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has
described the scale of corruption in Nigeria as unimaginable. Dogara
said this while speaking at a meeting with newspaper editors in Abuja on
Saturday July 9th. According to him, the antigraft agency is currently
recovering billions of Naira that was buried on a farmland in Abuja
“If I am just arrested, charged to court and maybe some money recovered
from me and, at the end of the day, nothing happens, a lot of people may
not be deterred in the future from engaging in corrupt practices. If
you look at the massive looting of the treasury,
I never could have imagined the scale of corruption
that we are witnessing right now, where people took lot of money running
into billions and buried them in farms. As we are speaking now, they
are recovering monies from someone’s farm somewhere around Abuja. It is
very unfortunate where people stole money just for the sake of
stealing”he said
Dogara added that the arms procurement fund that is currently being
probed was given to PDP members only and that no APC member collected
from the loot
“You know the arms purchase monies, for instance, virtually everything
was given for the prosecution of PDP campaign. I do not think a dime
went to any member of the APC; we were all in government then. I can’t
remember a discussion like that then. I knew when some of the funds
were being given to some of our friends as well but, I believe that no
one that is of APC stock was given that money. The whole thing was
scripted. I don’t think the fight has really been one-sided. If you
recall, one of the closest aides to the president, I don’t want to name
him, if you recall when he was picked up, everyone was shocked that the
man could be picked up. He had been one of the most dutiful, yet he
wasn’t spared when evidence was adduced that he benefitted from it and
he had to refund the money. Recently, one of the closest people to the
Villa was, as well, picked up. He has been detained and questioned; some
recoveries were made from him. If the intention was that the fight
should be one-sided, I can guarantee you that if it were to be a case
that would have sacred cows, those two amply qualify as sacred cows that
should not be touched,”he said