We have started recovering stolen funds, says Buhari

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has officially confirmed that some persons who misappropriated public funds especially in the immediate past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan have started returning stolen funds into the government coffers secretly.

The President said this in Tehran, the Iranian capital at a forum with the Nigerian community in that country.

Commenting, Buhari said “On corruption; yes, they are still innocent. But, we are collecting documents and some of them have started voluntarily returning something. But we want all.

He also admitted that there were those he called sabotaging the nation’s quest to get steady power supply, noting, however, that steps were being taken to ensure that there were tackled squarely.

The President’s declaration on alleged treasury looters appears to have laid to rest, several months of speculations that some prominent political players in the last dispensation have started returning their loots through the back door.

Buhari, in a question-and-answer session with the Nigerian community in Iran, explained that those accused of corruption would have been prosecuted by now but for the need to thoroughly investigate them with a view to gathering enough evidence for their eventual trial.

The President admitted that it was easier for him during his tenure as a military Head of State in 1984/85 to arrest and put those alleged corrupt individuals in “protective custody” for them to prove their innocence but the dictates of rule of law and due process has slowed him down in prosecuting corruption in this dispensation.