FG tracking oil theft proceeds in banks – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday said his administration has taken a further step to recover looted Nigerian funds.

He said his government had started identifying banks, financial institutions and countries in which payments for stolen Nigerian crude oil had been deposited.

According to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the president spoke while granting audience to United States congressmen at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Adesina said the president acknowledged the support and cooperation his administration was getting from the international community in gathering required intelligence for tracing and recovering stolen national resources.

“We are getting cooperation from the international community, including information on ships that take crude oil from Nigeria and change direction, or pour their contents into other ships mid-stream.

“Some monies were paid to individual accounts. We are identifying the financial institutions and countries that are involved.

“I have been assured that when we get all our documents together, the United States and other countries will treat our case with sympathy,’’ the president was quoted as telling the congressmen led by Darrel Issa.

He also told them that his administration would welcome more regular meetings of the Nigeria-United States Bi-National Commission.

He noted that the commission could serve as a more useful platform for the promotion of bilateral trade and economic relations as well as joint cooperation in the war against terrorism.

Darrel assured Buhari that the US would support Nigeria against Boko Haram by providing training, intelligence and military platforms.

“We look forward to helping you in many ways to end the Boko Haram insurgency and the theft of crude oil in the Gulf of Guinea,” he said.

Meanwhile, a former Senate Deputy Chief Whip, Gbenga Aluko, has said President Buhari’s visit to United States would boost the fight against corruption and Boko Haram insurgency in the country.

Aluko, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who was part of Buhari’s entourage to US, being a Director in American Chevron Oil, said President Barack Obama’s resolve to join Nigeria in the fight against corruption and sectarian crisis had raised the hope that the country would win the war.

He also urged Buhari to quickly intervene and unify all the factions for the party to be able to wrest power from Governor Ayodele Fayose in 2018.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen in Ado Ekiti on Monday, Aluko, a member of the fourth Senate, advised the APC to continue to seek reconciliation on the crisis surrounding the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate President.

According to him, Saraki’s hands were tied under the circumstance Senator Ike Ekweremadu emerged his deputy.

“Nothing is too much for Nigeria to do to curtail corruption and Boko Haram. President Buhari’s visit was majorly on these two critical areas and the US had given the assurance to repatriate over $150 billion stolen from Nigeria. This, if actualised will turn around the country for good.

“In diplomatic issue, it is always very hard to get immediate assurances from US. But for President Obama to have given the nod to help, was even a success on its own,” he said.

Aluko appealed to all intending aspirants in Ekiti APC to bury their aspirations for now.

“Let all of us subsume our intentions just for the sake of APC. Let us fight for unity and from there we can begin to say I am going to be this or that.

“I decided to leave PDP because I cannot be comfortable under the atmosphere of impunity. The party held power for 16 years and began to become irresponsible and I cannot continue with it.”