The Federal Government said, Wednesday, that the recent declaration of June 12 as public holiday will only come into effect after the amendment of the Public Holidays Act.
Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice, said “As it relates to public holidays, there is truly a Public Holidays Act, but it is about the process of amendment. At any rate, the Act can be amended and the process of amendment has been put in place.
“So, when the Act has been fully amended, the declaration of the President will come into effect. It is a declaration of intention, a declaration of desire and that will eventually be given effect with the act of amendment of the existing law.”
The Federal Government has also stated that President Muhammadu Buhari will assent the 2018 Appropriation Bill of N9.1 trillion next week.
Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, stated this while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting presided over by President Buhari at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
This is even as said FEC approved N500 million as legal fee for lawyers involved in the recovery of N330 billion fine to MTN.
Malami also said that the Federal and United States governments were having talks on the repatriation of $500 million which was part of the stolen assets, adding that the US government has insisted that the federal government came up with the projects the money will be invested in.
The AGF also disclosed that the Public Holidays Act will soon be amended to accommodate the declaration of June 12 as public holiday.
On the National Merit Award Act and the Nigerian National Honours Act, Malami said: “They are two distinct and different applicable laws as far as National honours awards are concerned. You have the National Merit Award on the strength of which we have the law of the governing board comes into effect and then as it relates to the National Honours Act, the board does not have any relevance in terms of processing of the honours.
“For then, above all, we equally have in existence, precedence as it relates to the award of posthumous Honours. I can recall that a former Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed, was equally honoured posthumously, among others.
On recovered loot and recovery of N330 billion fine from MTN, Malami said: “Council approved a memorandum that seeks to strengthen prevention measures and institutions on the part of implementations of Mr. President’s London commitment on anti-corruption and Open Government Partnership.
“You will recall in 2016, during the anti-corruption summit, Mr. President gave commitment to the implementation of Open Government Partnership. In pursuance of that commitment, Nigeria has, indeed, register as a member of the World Open Government Partnership which is to give commitment to transparency, accountability and access of the citizen to governance.
“Arising from that commitment, Mr. President has also given approval to the national action plan on Open Government Partnership.
“Today, the memo presented seeks the establishment of units within MDAs that will now give effect to that transparency, accountability and access of the citizens to information relating to governance.
“It is about strengthening and institutionalising transparency and accountability, all geared towards the fight against corruption which constitutes one of the higher points of the commitment of the President in this administration.
“Council approved the payment of professional fees to lawyers engaged by federal government relating to the MTN case instituted against the federal government in pursuance of penalty of over N1 trillion imposed by the government on MTN.
“MTN as you will recall, instituted a case seeking to restrain the federal government from recovering the over N1 trillion imposed on it.
“The federal government engaged the services of lawyers to put up defence on its behalf. As a result, the case was eventually settled by the parties amicably and arising from that settlement, the lawyers were entitled to their fees.
“The federal government has now sanctioned the payment of N500 million for the N330 billion agreed upon for the alleged certain breaches in their operations. This amount is less than one percent of the fee, instead of the internationally recognized fee which is pegged at 5%.
“Finally, was a report on the global forum on assets recovery. You will recall that in December 2017, federal government participated in global forum on asset recovery in Washington DC and during that forum, Nigeria and Switzerland signed agreement that paved way for the repatriation of $322 million relating to looted assets and on the account of that, the amount was eventually repatriated back to Nigeria.
“What transpired was only reported back to the council today. The report today was not only about the signing of the agreement but the report of the eventual repatriation of the amount of money signed and agreed to be repatriated during the forum.
“Nigeria has also engaged other countries, including the UK, US, France and others, in further negotiations relating to repatriation and I am happy to report that we are almost concluding the processes relating to the repatriation of additional $500 million.”
On the report of the joint committee between Nigeria and the US over the repatriation of $500 million looted funds stashed away in the US, he said: “The position of things is that we are discussing and making progress and arising from that discussions, we are at a point where we are trying to come to terms with the U.S government as to the project that Nigeria intends to commit the money.
“So, we have sourced information from various MDAs, as to what project they think are of interest to them so that we can now collate information relating to project of interest and make them basis for our further discussions.”
On rehabilitation, repair and construction of roads, Femi Adesina said Council approved 14 road projects in different parts of the country at the cost of N185,276,192,586.59.
