FEC okays repatriation of $321m Abacha loot

Abacha

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has given the go ahead for the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to sign agreement on behalf of the Federal Government for the repatriation of $321 million Abacha loot from Switzerland.

Malami submitted the memo for FEC’s consideration at its Wednesday’s meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja.

Briefing State House corespondents after the meeting, the Attorney General reiterated that both the Nigerian and Swiss governments were substantially in agreement on the recovery of the money from Switzerland.

He said the decision to seek FEC approval was reached during negotiations for the repatriation of the funds.

Malami said the agreement for the repatriation would now be signed in December.

 He said: “As you are aware, the Federal Government has been making efforts to recover stolen funds, loot, assets and the efforts have been indeed yielding fruits particularly as it relates to local recoveries.

“A memo has been presented to council this afternoon by the office of the Attorney General which is intended to shift focus to international recovery.

 “Before going into the memo, I think it is important to bring to your attention that recently, about a week ago, we succeeded in recovering $85million relating to Malabu issues from U.K.

“And then, now, there exists a forum, that is Global Assets Recovery Forum taking place in December in US and we are looking towards that.

“We are in agreement substantially with the Swiss for the recovery of additional sum of $321million.

“That memorandum of understanding has been substantially agreed between Nigeria and Swiss. We intend to now execute or to sign off the agreement during the global forum on assets recovery coming up December.

“The intention of the memo, one is to seek the approval of the council to allow the Attorney General to sign the agreement on behalf of the Government of the Federation of Nigeria.

“Two, is to develop an instrument of ratification which will now give the Attorney General, the powers to ensure the repatriation of the funds.

 

Source: Nigerian Tribune