Two top government officials, the National security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (retired), and the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba were drilled by the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee probing the recovery and management of looted funds and assets by agencies of the federal government.

Though the two senior officials were represented at the resumed hearing on Tuesday, they were, however, questioned on the various sums of monies and assets that have so far been recovered and kept in their custody.

Chairman of the House probe panel, Hon Adejoro Adeogun and other committee members who took their turns to ask the representatives of the NSA and the IGP questions after the lawmakers accepted letters authorizing them to stand -in for their bosses on account of attending to exigent national security assignments, were, however, told by the  Director of Finance and Administration of the Office of National Security Adviser, Brig-Gen Jafaru Mohammed (rtd) representing the NSA Major-Gen Babagana Monguno (rtd), that the NSA’s office does not get directly involved in monies recovered.

He, however, admitted that they are only involved in recoveries of stolen funds or assets when there is a presidential directive ordering their involvement, which is often not always but occasionally.

Brig Mohammed explained that the closest the office had to such assignment was when the President constituted a committee to investigate arms and ammunitions purchase and the committee operated without interference from the office of the NSA.

But the Committee Chairman faulted that claim and insisted that the arms and ammunitions committee in question was directly supervised by the NSA’s office, adding that there were a lot of bank accounts opened by the office that had many inflows and withdrawals by the office.

The DFA, however, denied the existence of many bank accounts as purported by the panel, saying that the NSA’s office only operates two accounts viz: a domiciliary dollar account and Naira account with the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN.

He further said that the only recovery was only the sum of $7,436 million that was recovered by the agency and deposited into the CBN account.

But committee members notably Hon. Sada Soli admitted that the sum of N712 million was paid into the recovery account of the CBN in August 2017 by the agency, with the committee chairman, stating that the DFA was lying on oath.

Similarly, in its presentation to the probe panel, the representative of the IGP, Deputy Inspector-General of the Police, Joseph Egbuniwe, said that there were about N114 million lodgements of recovered funds done by the Police into a CBN recovery account.

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He stated that there was one $30 million and another N214 million recovered from 23 election fraudsters from Rivers State that was paid into the same account.

Fielding questions from lawmakers on whether there were other recoveries, DIG Egbuniwe, disclosed that 83 tankers and seven marine vessels were also recovered.

He added that the Police had made payment to the CBN account and that a former IGP Mr Ibrahim Idris who assumed office in 2016 had directed that all recovered funds be kept in a separate account.

But the lawmakers nonetheless pointed out that the Police record of recoveries is very inconsistent with what they have in documents there were the payments of N4, 1900 million, N3,850 million and other amounts into the account.

Chairman of the ad-hoc committee Hon. Adeogun in his ruling said it appears that that the Police only pays tithes to the CBN out of all the huge recoveries and added that they should turn every asset wasting under its custody into assets.

The Committee is to order the appearance of the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Arms and Ammunitions purchase Air Vice Marshal Ode and the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Ahmed Idris, to its next sitting for testimonies.

Recall that the Ad-hoc Committee had on Monday, June 7, 2021, summoned the NSA, IGP, NIMASA DG and other heads of MDAs to appear on Thursday 10th June unfailingly, having failed to turn up to an investigative hearing on the matter on that date.

However, at the rescheduled hearing, the committee helmsman said both the IGP and NSA had written to the committee explaining why they couldn’t come on the date they were summoned as they were part of the President’s entourage to Lagos where he commissioned a railway project on the same date.