Nigeria To Recover More Abacha Loot

The Nigerian Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami revealed that the Nigerian government will soon repatriate more of Abacha loot held in foreign accounts by the former military President, General Sani Abacha. This was said at an interactive session with the House of Representative Committee on Justice.

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.
 “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.” The minister said