Nigeria’s Ministry of Justice has expressed its readiness to prosecute looters of the nation’s treasury.This was disclosed on Thursday by Abdullahi Ahmed Yola,permanent secretary of the ministry after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking with State House correspondents afterwards , he said his ministry will be ready to prosecute those who looted the nation’s treasury in the immediate past administration once relevant security agencies conclude investigation.
So far, Yola , said that the ministry has not received any at the moment. According to him:”If the ministry receives investigations concluded by the responsible agencies, we will play our part.
“We will play our part with the prosecution of whoever has been found wanting and the security agencies have concluded investigation on that.
“At the moment the ministry is not in receipt of any report concerning that.”
He also said “We have briefed the President on how we conduct ourselves concerning the maintaining of the rule of law in the country.
“As you know, rule of law is one of the cardinal policies of this administration and we have given him a rundown of what we have been doing from 2011 till now.
“We also pledged to him to continue cooperating with him to ensure that all the promises he has made to Nigerians as far as they relate to rule of law are achieved”.
Also, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Works, Mr. Dauda Kigbu, he said the ministry was exploring alternative sources of funds, aside budgetary provisions, for execution of road projects across the country.
He said “The President is committed to developing this country and he is passionate about roads because roads are central to national development. He confirmed that he will look into the suggestion because if you look at the multilateral support, for example, it always has some moratorium period, a reasonable period for repayment and the interest charged is almost one per cent,” Kigbu said.
He could not state which projects will be Buhari’s priorities “The projects span across the entire country and I will not be able to tell you that one is more important than the other because you know the complexity of this country.
“I can however tell you that we are working right now on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway; we are also looking at Enugu-Port Harcourt Road and Mokwa-Bida Road as well as a number of others across the country.”
On what he briefed Buhari, he said: “I took the President through the activities of the Ministry of Works. As you may be aware, 90 per cent of the ministry’s mandate is mainly on roads.
“I went through all the major projects across the country and I emphasised the need of seeking other windows of funding outside of the national budget, particularly looking at PPP model as well as looking at various supports like multilateral supports from agencies such as the World Bank, African Development Bank and similar bodies.”
Addressing the issue of the second Niger Bridge, he said “The second Niger Bridge, as we speak, there are ongoing activities, particular early works. Remember that that particular project is under the PPP which I have elaborately mentioned.”
Also, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Ambassador Abdulkadir Musa, told journalists that his briefing with Buhari revolved around creation of jobs
