FG to receive new tranche of Abacha loot
The federal government has signed an agreement with the United States government to facilitate the repatriation of another tranche of the Abacha loot.
What’s the agreement for?
There had been a series of negotiations involving Nigeria, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) over the return of this batch of the funds said to have been looted by Nigeria’s late former military Head of State, General Sani Abacha. The Tuesday agreement, which was signed at the Federal Ministry of Justice Headquarters in Abuja, is the outcome of the negotiations, whose terms included how the returned loot would be utilized.
How will it be utilized?
According to the Minister of Justice and attorney-general of the federation, Abubakar Malami, the $23,439,724 loot will be used to finance some infrastructural projects that have already been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari. “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).
Reassuring the representative of the U.S. government, the U.S ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, on the usage of the returned loot (which Malami tagged “Abacha-5”), Malami added that president Buhari had instructed his office to “ensure that all international recoveries are transparently invested and monitored by civil society organization” to complete the above-mentioned projects.
