President Muhammadu Buhari has concluded plans to recover unreturned government property still being utilized by officials of the immediate past administration.
A committee, comprising civil servants and representations from some security agencies, will be mandated to recover the public assets from the political appointees that served under the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
The decision to recover the vehicles, houses, generator sets and other property from the former government officials, it was learnt, was prompted by refusal of some officials of the past administration to willingly return government property in their possession weeks after they had left office.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, confirmed to journalists on Sunday that the president is going after those found in possession of public assets.
“That is precisely the case. Even here at the Villa, there are cars and other property belonging to the government which are yet to be returned.
“The property belong to the Nigerian people. We are not trying to humiliate anyone by asking them to return their cars or houses”, he said.
The presidential spokesman lamented the culture of impunity that had prevailed in Nigeria over the years under the Peoples Democratic Party’s watch but said all that was set to change.
“But change has come. That is why we have to do things differently now. Imagine how much Nigeria will save by retrieving and re-using these government property instead of purchasing new ones for new government officials”, he said.
