Billions of dollars stashed away in foreign bank accounts by the late
military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, may far exceed the already
established $5 billion, as a Special Investigation Panel (SIP), tracing
what has now become ‘Abacha loot,’ has stumbled on fresh clues
indicating that the stolen funds still trapped in offshore accounts
stand at over N3.2 trillion.
A competent source close to the panel, whose office is in the presidency
told Saturday Sun that about four different meetings between the SIP
team headed by a retired senior military officer and a Switzerland-based
lawyer, Enrico Monfrini, hired by the Federal Government to assist in
the recovery of the Abacha loot in foreign jurisdictions, had taken
place outside the country in the last eight months.
Monfrini is an Attorney-at-Law, Monfrini Grettol & Associés, Geneva,
Switzerland. The source, who preferred to be anonymous because of the
sensitive nature of the subject, said: “In the course of the recent
meetings between the Nigerian team and authorities in about four other
jurisdictions as well as the team from the foreign legal firm, it was
discovered that a lot of underhand dealings must have taken place in the
recovery of the Abacha loot.
“This was largely responsible for the under-declaration of what has been
recovered so far by three successive governments and worse still what
is still trapped in offshore accounts, which, in our estimation, in our
last meeting with our foreign team, stands at $210 billion.” Some of
the foreign jurisdictions, where the stolen funds had been traced to
include Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and
the United States.
One of the latest discoveries includes a $550 million in a coded account
in France. “It has been very difficult to get details out into the
public domain so far because the latest process is being secretly
coordinated by the retired senior military officer heading the SIP in
the presidency and the Attorney General of the federation, who provides
legal advice for the team,” the source added. The Federal Government
was said to have been encouraged to dig deeper into the Abacha loot
because of a recent statement credited to the Swiss lawyer, Monfrini,
handling the case.
While giving further insight into previous efforts to recover the stolen
money, the lawyer was quoted to have said: “Civil action was initiated
by the Federal Republic of Nigeria before the High Court of London in
May 1999. It resulted in the seizing of only USD 60 million in the
United Kingdom. The ‘full account’ given by the members of Abacha family
was notoriously incomplete, notably in respect of their Swiss,
Liechtenstein and Luxembourg assets, totaling USD 1.5 billion, which
were entirely omitted. Less than USD 10 million of frozen assets been
forfeited and recovered in the United Kingdom, none of which was through
civil proceedings.”
Only the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo has been
able to record the highest amount of $1.25 billion from the Abacha loot.
The preceding regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar and the succeeding
government of the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua could not do much
in this regard notwithstanding the efforts also made. Obasanjo recently
gave an indication that much could still be trapped outside the country
when he declared, at a function in Delta State: “When I was president, I
called the World Bank.
I said, please, give me the list of the amount that has been stolen,
where it is kept and who the beneficiaries are. I never got anything
from the World Bank thereafter. We have on our own decided that we will
investigate and get from one family, Abacha family alone. “From the
Abacha family alone, we recovered millions of dollars. I got 1.25
billion dollars and the lawyer in Switzerland (he is still there), who
was doing it for us, said, when I was leaving, that if we worked harder,
there was still, at least, one billion dollars that we can get from
that family alone.” General Sani Abacha had ruled Nigeria as a military
Head of State between November 17, 1993 and June 8, 1998, when he died
suddenly of a heart attack.
As a result, General Abdulsalami Abubakar became the head of state and
within a short time, he re-established democracy in Nigeria, arranging
for general elections that resulted in the emergence of Obasanjo
assuming the presidency as the democratically elected leader of the
country in 1999. Before Obasanjo took office, Abubakar’s government had
delivered a clear message that Abacha had looted huge sums, and they
had to be restored. Members of the Abacha family and some of their
accomplice then ‘voluntarily’ returned approximately $1 billion to the
Federal Government.
In 2002, the Obasanjo administration tentatively came to an agreement
with the Abacha family to return another $1 billion out of the $1.1
billion that had been identified, traced and frozen, with the quid pro
quo that the Abachas would be allowed to keep balance that had been
assessed not to be of criminal origin. The arrangement was not well
received by the masses.
Although the proposal caused a massive outcry for seeming to reward the
theft of public funds, it was subsequently rejected by the late
dictator’s son, Mohammed Abacha, who continued to maintain that all the
assets in question were legitimately acquired. The highest sum that had
in the past been traced to the family ranged from $3 billion to $5
billion, which includes money allegedly derived from misappropriation of
funds from the Central Bank of Nigeria, bribes received from
multi-nationals, among others.
The Swiss government last December said that it has so far returned to
Nigeria the sum of $700 million stolen by the late dictator and
deposited in several Swiss banks. The Swiss ambassador to Nigeria, Dr.
Hans-Rudolf Hodel, had announced the figure at a media briefing in
Abuja. In addition to freezing about $640 million, the Swiss judicial
authorities handling the case have also indicted Mohammed Abacha and
Atiku Bagudu under Swiss legislation regarding money laundering, fraud
and taking part in a criminal organisation.
While the latest discovery of the volume of stolen funds still trapped
outside the country may appear as an indication of a breakthrough in the
renewed effort to recover the looted funds, the sad news is, however,
that Nigeria may never get the money back through the legal means it has
been following since 1999. “In one of the last meetings before the SIP
team stopped foreign trips on the case, the Nigerian government was told
in plain terms that it will be too hard to get the money repatriated to
the country through any court case or legal battles except through
diplomatic negotiations with the foreign jurisdictions where these funds
have been servicing their economies,” our source added.
It was further gathered that the Jonathan administration is already
contemplating the idea of checking the record of recoveries made under
the coordination of a former National Security Adviser (NSA). As a
result, the SIP was said to have recently interacted with a retired
Deputy Inspector General of Police, DIG Peter Gana who worked with the
ex-security adviser on the recovery of the Abacha loot with a view to
getting certain clues needed for further probe.
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