Tobias Sylvester
The Nigerian Government will receive a fresh $23,439,724 looted by the late former military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, from the United States.
US To Return Abacha Loot
According to Vanguard, Nigeria signed a fresh agreement with the United States Government on Tuesday, August 23, for the repatriation of the looted money.
While the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, represented Nigeria in the ceremonial signing of the asset return agreement held at the Federal Ministry of Justice Headquarters in Abuja, the US government, was represented by its Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard.
The AGF, Malami, SAN, said decision to return the stolen loot which he tagged as Abacha-5, was a product of series of negotiations and meetings between Nigeria, the US Department of Justice and the UK National Crime Agency, NCA.
“It is worthy to note that in line with the terms of this Agreement, Mr. President had already approved the funds to be utilized for the ongoing Presidential Development Infrastructural Funds, PIDF, projects namely; Abuja-Kano Road, Lagos-Ibadan Express Way and the Second Niger Bridge under the supervision of Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, NSIA
“The President’s mandate to my office is to ensure that all international recoveries are transparently invested and monitored by civil society organization to compete these three projects within the agreed timeline”, Malami stated.
So far, trillions of Naira of the Abacha loot has been repatriated with many more believed to be still out there in the vaults of Western and Asian banks.
This comes two months after the Federal Government revealed that the $322.5million stolen funds by Sani Abacha between 2018-2022, had been shared to 1.9million poor and vulnerable Nigerians.
