A member of the House of Representatives, Dachung Musa Bagos, said the Federal government should use part of the recovered $23 million Abacha loot to settle the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The lawmaker made this known while speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday.
It could be recalled on Tuesday, that the federal government and the US reached an agreement to repatriate a new batch of funds looted by Sani Abacha, the former Nigerian head of state.
Abubakar Malami, minister of justice and attorney-general of the federation, said the recovered loot, which is tagged ‘Abacha-5’, has been earmarked for the completion of the Abuja-Kano road, Lagos-Ibadan expressway, and the Second Niger Bridge.
Reacting to the development, Bagos said, “We have pressing needs. Like now, ASUU has been on strike, and the government is trying to settle those issues.
“As a representative of the people, if I have to argue where those funds should be channeled to on the floor, I will say, ‘Why can’t you channel this fund to ASUU so that most of the youths that are at home would go back to school?’ But some of the areas we feel that the executive is channeling those funds are not the immediate needs of Nigerians.”
He added, “This is my third year in the National Assembly, we have never discussed any of the recovered loot. We just sit down and we hear that the executive recovered loot and allotted the same to projects that they so desire.
“We believe that when we discuss these issues at the National Assembly, we appropriate those funds according to the needs of Nigeria, it is going to go a long way; not just the executive looking at it and alloting it (the fund) to what they feel it should be. The constitution has given us that right.”
