Alliance for Surviv­ing COVID-19 and Beyond, (ASCAB), a group led by prominent Nigerian human rights lawyer, Femi Falana has said that President Mu­hammadu Buhari’s claim that late dictator, Sani Abacha, stole $1 billion con­tradicts the figures earlier released by his own officials.

The group described as inconsistent the President’s statement contained in an ar­ticle he wrote for the interna­tional magazine, Newsweek adding that the $1bn quoted by Buhari is barely one fifth of the total amount top officials of the same government claimed to have recovered from the late military henchman.

In a statement signed by ASCAB Secretary for Pub­licity, Adewale Adeoye and made available to newsmen on Monday said that the President’s article falls short of reflecting the stark realities of corruption at the home front and had ridiculed the image of the country as forebears of truth.

“There is a wide gap be­tween the $1b President Bu­hari claimed Abacha had sto­len and the $5b earlier admitted by the same government. This raises fundamental questions about the whole gamut of the campaign against corruption which is one of the focal points of Buhari’s regime.”