Looted Fund Return: U.S. Won't Hand Over Cash To Nigeria-Official

The United States Government has said it will not hand over physical cash accruing from looted funds by Nigerians in the country to the federal government.

This was disclosed yesterday in Abuja by the International Affairs Fellow, Under Council of Foreign Affairs, Mathew T. Paige.

According to Paige, who fielded questions from students and lecturers of Baze University, Abuja, the US government would rather channel such money to funding of development programmes in Nigeria.

“There are different constructions in attitudes and approaches in different western countries- London and other European countries and the United States,” he said.

He said the sense in Washington compared to Switzerland, and Luxembourg is not to take the seed funds and hand over back to the Nigerian government directly.

He said, “There is a sense in Washington that they don’t want to hand the funds directly back to the government that is involved in corruption and embezzlement.

Paige noted that instead, those funds have to be put into development programmes for Nigeria as funding for these programmes, saying, “The desirable thing is to cut out the middle man to succeed. I think that is where things are heading right now. I don’t need to see the US handing some sort of Ghana Must Go bag full of stolen loot back to the government.