The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has given insight into how the Federal Government arrived at the figure it announced last week of N1.34 trillion siphoned by 55 Nigerians.
Mohammed, in a Tuesday chat with Editors and Bureau Chiefs in Abuja, said the figure was the total sum of the monies diverted by the individuals being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from 2006 and 2013.
The minister, who had been challenged to provide more concrete information such as the names of the looters and how the government arrived at the figure, said it was the duty of the media to plug such holes by launching investigative journalism reports.
He noted that the figure represented a victory for the present administration’s fight against corruption in public life, although most of the allegations against the supposedly corrupt individuals were yet to be proven.
While adding that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration will not be deterred in its efforts to see an end to corrupt practices in the country, Mohammed said:
“The paid media blackmail, propaganda, attacks and other counter-efforts by affected persons are ways corruption fights back. But all these are not enough to stop the government because that is the most important task the government must sustain.
“The revelation and its popularity all over the world has rattled the enemies of the country involved in the Dasukigate scandal into hack writing, media attacks and other antics. We therefore, call on Nigerians not to fall for their tricks and keep supporting the Federal Government in the war against the culture of looting and impunity.
“Another assurance this government will always give the people of Nigeria is that its only focus is not just fighting the few corrupt Nigerians. It has been part of the propaganda of the affected persons that this government has nothing else to offer the people apart from fighting corruption.
“That is not true because the government must keep all its promises to change Nigeria for the better. But it has to start from the most pressing issue, which is corruption and will later touch on all other issues of national importance the same way it fought the insecurity caused by Boko Haram till its present state.”
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