The Nigerian Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, during an interactive session with the House of Representative...
The Nigerian Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar
Malami, during an interactive session with the House of Representative
Committee on Justice, revealed that the Nigerian government will soon
repatriate more of the infamous Abacha loot held in foreign accounts by
the former military President, General Sani Abacha.
The amount to be received, the minister revealed, is $750 million
(approximately N150 trillion). An additional N2 billion, stolen by the
UK convicted, former Governor of Delta State,
James Ibori, is expected
to be returned soon.
The minister stated that: “In respect of the recovery of looted
assets, the ministry will engage in an agreement waive policy of using
mutual legal assistance agreements or other bilateral and multilateral
instruments to seek cooperation with other jurisdictions to ensure the
repatriation of illicitly-acquired assets in foreign jurisdictions.
“The collaboration will equally involve the engagement if foreign
based counsel will attend to matters on behalf of the federal
government. Low- hanging fruits being targeted in this initiative
include $750 million Abacha loot as well as the £6.9 million of the
Ibori loot.”
“In the long run, the ministry will be in a position to coordinate
the recovery of billions of dollars in foreign jurisdictions, based on
current estimations.”
“It is equally necessary to highlight the fact that the ministry’s
current liability for judgment debt is in the region of N75 billion.
“The ministry has however proposed the sum of N16 billion to meet a
portion of the outstanding sum in 2016, out of which the budget office
has proposed an extremely low sum of N 709,155, 140.00 which does not
meet even one percent of the outstanding judgment debts.”
