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.

Thanks to ONE NIGERIA