Nigeria To Claim $458 Abacha Loot Facing Forfeiture Proceedings In United States

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Nigeria has indicated that it intends to claim the $458 million Abacha loot the government of the United States announced earlier this month it has frozen.

 In a statement, Mohammed Bello Adoke, Nigeria’s Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, said the government welcomes the forfeiture proceedings initiated by the United States Department of Justice against the property related to the corrupt conduct of late General Sani Abacha, the former head of state of Nigeria, and his Associates and the subsequent laundering of corruption proceeds.

 He added that those proceedings will make it possible for the defendants to forfeit over $550 million and £95,910 in 10 accounts and six investment
portfolios linked to the Abachas in France, Britain, British Virgin Islands and the United States.


 “We applaud the efforts of the United States to recover the proceeds of corruption for the benefit of the people of Nigeria,” the statement said.
“As the Central Authority for the Federal Republic of Nigeria, my office has received requests for Mutual Legal Assistance for the Central Authority of the United States and we are cooperating with the United States in line with the obligations we assumed under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.”

 Mr. Adoke said the overall objective of these efforts is to ensure that Nigeria as the Victim State is able to have the forfeited assets repatriated to Nigeria to fund development projects for the benefit of the people in accordance with the dictates of Chapter IV of the United Nations Convention against corruption (UNCAC).

 Nigeria as State Party to UNCAC will do all that is required to realize that objective, he assured.

 The problem with the Nigeria narrative is that the government is highly distrusted to spend recovered and repatriated funds or account for them because it has shown no inclination to combat corruption.  It has never given to the people of Nigeria a systematic account of recoveries or what they were used for, and many Nigerians believe the funds were simply shared among corrupt officials in power.

 Partly as a result, Nigeria will have tremendous difficulty persuading the United States to repatriate the latest recovered assets.  Any such repatriation might come with the same kinds of conditions imposed by Switzerland, which insisted on participating in some oversight capacity, along with the World Bank, for the $700 million it was repatriating to Nigeria.  Still, Nigerians complain they cannot find the projects the government says it spend the funds on.

 It will be recalled that in March 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan granted state pardon to his friend and predecessor as Governor of Bayelsa State, Dipreye Alamieyeseigha, who had been convicted in Britain of offences similar to Abacha’s.  

 In June 2012, the United States also obtained two default judgments against Alamieyeseigha for a $700,000 mansion in Maryland, as well as a Fidelity investment account in Massachusetts worth about $400,000.  That account and other assets connected with it were forfeited to the United States when neither Mr. Jonathan nor “the Central Authority for the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” responded to the notification of the United States that they were available to be claimed.  

 Just months after those events, Mr. Jonathan announced his infamous pardon for Alamieyeseigha.

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