Yemi Osinbajo, vice president, has hinted that the Muhammadu Buhari administration has reached out to the United States, US, government to increase its assistance towards stopping corrupt officials from hiding stolen funds in the US.
A statement by Laolu Akande, senior special assistant on Media and Publicity, said Osinbajo spoke during a visit of a US Congressional Delegation to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday.
“We have reached out to the US government with respect with helping us with the repatriation of proceeds of crime and proceeds of corruption,” the VP said.
He was said to have told the delegation that the present administration regarded corruption as an existential threat that must be dealt with at its root. “We have worked quite closely with the US government on repatriation of funds, we have seen some results. We think that this is very important because what tends to happen with corrupt public officials is that if they are able to find a safe haven for the proceeds of their criminality, not only are they encouraged as individuals but there is the general feeling that ‘if I am able to get the proceeds out of the country, I might just get away with it,” said Osinbajo.
He added that, “This is one of the reasons why we have taken several actions to ensure that we are able to deal with it because some of the major dislocations in the economy are on account of the problems that we have seen with corruption. The Buhari presidency’s strategy which is one of the most effective ways of fighting corruption is ensuring that these proceeds are unsafe and for people to know that they would be found out and they would be punished for it and we would seize whatever profit they had make.’’
Senator Christopher Coons, who led the delegation, said the visit was to reaffirm the US relationship with Nigeria, noting that the “US has an enduring enthusiasm and partnership with Nigeria.’’

Coons said the delegation was in Nigeria “both to offer our sustained bipartisan and commitment to the US-Nigerian relationship; to learn more about ongoing challenges in terms of security, and health and development.”
According to him, the delegation visited Nigeria “also to celebrate the opportunities, the entrepreneurship, the energy of many sectors in Nigeria from film-making to job creations to innovation itself.”