Lagos: NIGERIA is engaged in talks with United States and United Kingdom authorities to repatriate the late dictator Sani Abacha’s $500 million loot frozen by the American government.
The meeting, held at Nigerian High Commission in London, saw Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the UK, Justice George Oguntade engaging US and UK justice department officials on modalities to recover assets abroad.
According to Nigeria’s Vanguard, Nigeria has agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK, US and Jersey on the return of the cash to the country
Malami told Vanguard in an exclusive interview from London that Nigeria had agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK, US and Jersey on the return of the cash to the country.
“At our meeting in London today, we reviewed the MoU to be signed by Nigeria, US, UK and Jersey and made collective input into it so that at our next and final meeting in July we can sign the document and agree on the final draw down of the money,” Malami is quoted saying.
“Indeed, Nigeria has made tremendous progress regarding the repatriation of the cash. But our strong conviction is that the money will be drawn down for the benefit of the country and we are working hard to ensure that it is done as soon as possible by taking the necessary legal and diplomatic steps to deal with it.”
Several hundreds of millions of dollars Nigerian money was stolen by Abacha and stashed away in Switzerland and in other countries. Previously Switzerland has returned to Nigeria more than $700 million that late Abacha hid in Swiss accounts.
