A week after the United States returned $311 million Abacha Loot from the US and the Bailiwick of Jersey, the American Embassy in Nigeria announced, Wednesday, that late maximum leader looted and hid another $319million (N121bn) in the United Kingdom and France.
“The funds returned last week are distinct and separate from an additional $167m in stolen assets also forfeited in the United Kingdom and France, as well as $152m still in active litigation in the United Kingdom,” the embassy said in a statement on Wednesday.
Apart from the revelation, the Americans assured that the United States will continue to help Nigeria to “combat corruption and to ensure a successful outcome in the return of these funds.”
However, the statement was silent on whether the $152m litigation in the United Kingdom is the same with $152m (which has now ballooned to $155m due as result of interest) being challenged by the UK and the US in a British court.
Both US and UK have locked horns on the repatriation of the money to Nigeria on the suspicion that the Muhammadu Buhari Administration was planning to return $110 million of the money to Alhaji Atiku Bagudu, the current Governor of Kebbi State, was a financial adviser to the Abacha Family.
Recall that the U.S. Department of Justice had said, in a statement in February, that Bagudu was part of a plundering network controlled by the late Nigerian dictator Abacha that “embezzled, misappropriated and extorted billions from the government of Nigeria.”
Bloomberg reported that the President Muhammadu Buhari Administration was seeking the approval of a UK court to take possession of the assets before transferring 70 percent of the proceeds to Bagudu under the terms of an agreement signed in 2018.
But Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mallam Abubakar Malami, dismissed the allegation, insisting there no deal with Bagudu but court papers say otherwise.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that the UK government’s National Crime Agency was “opposing the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s application,” according to a motion filed by Bagudu’s brother, Ibrahim, to the District Court for the District of Columbia in the US capital on March 30.