It must have been humiliating for Nigeria’s foreign minister to beg the United States to help repatriate funds that fellow Nigerians stole, but are stashed in US vaults.

It is even more humiliating for Nigeria to receive fixed terms, before it can repatriate own stolen money — or else, forfeit it all!

Yet, that was the situation Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s foreign minister, found himself at the 6th session of the Nigeria-US Bi-National Commission, at Abuja, the federal capital. Represented by the ministry’s permanent secretary, Adamu Lamuwa, the minister appealed to the United States to help return Nigeria’s stolen funds in its banks.

Benchmarking the latest request on an earlier deal, in which an agreement among Nigeria, United States and Jersey endorsed the return loot worth US$ 308 million, the minister pressed for more – arguing that Nigeria deserves to have back every cent of its stolen money. He therefore appealed to Nigeria’s partners, in the Bi-National Commission, to make it happen.

This is a right call; and the Nigerian government should use every legitimate method to forcefully push it. Friends in the United States too, using as basis the February 2020 agreement on the US$ 308 million, should start a forceful internal lobby to achieve that goal. It is crunch time here, and Nigeria needs every kobo it can retrieve to help in building long-neglected rail tracks, roads, hospitals and schools.

Which is why it was so reassuring that Nigeria has re-pledged itself to committing the returned funds to roads, schools, hospitals, and general public works that will improve the lives of its citizens, raped by unscrupulous compatriots, who earlier looted the funds and set the country back.

This is reassuring for such pledges formed the basis for earlier repatriations, secured by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, to augment funding for critical public works, in the face of dwindling revenue and heavy interests on loans.

Indeed, aside from Sukuk – the Islamic non-interest loan – returned loots formed a decent part of the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF). PIDF signboards proudly stand on critical national road arteries as the Abuja-Kano road, the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the 2nd Niger Bridge, showing how stolen funds have helped to power back critical and new infrastructure.

Since the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) manages the PIDF, it might not be a bad idea – if that is not already the operational procedure – for the NSIA to be at the centre of these repatriation deals, showing exactly which projects and where, the recovered loot would be spent, for the glory of all.

Indeed, the more these funds are recovered and the more they are pumped into these critical public works, the better the chances that Nigeria will win its infrastructure race against time.

Besides, committing such retrieved funds to roads, schools, bridges, hospitals and rail tracks create short-term direct and indirect jobs. That goes a long way in reducing the poverty level and hunger in the land.

Still, the ultimate strategy would be a fraud-proof system in the public sector, such that incidence of stolen money is reduced to the barest minimum, if at all. President Bola Tinubu is already talking of technology as the “enemy” of fraud and sleaze. It’s time to put such in place.

That way, Nigeria can retain its legitimate revenue and incomes, and deploy them to critical areas nationwide as its governments find necessary, not subject to any appeals to the conscience of another country.

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