By Damola Emmanuel (who monitored the interview on Channels Television)
The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, on Tuesday, threw more light on the £4.2 million that Britain recovered from the former Governor of Delta State, Mr. James Onanefe Ibori, and justified why the amount was not returned directly to the state.
This was in contradistinction to the case of a former Governor of Bayelsa State, the late Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, who, like Ibori, was convicted of looting state funds, jailed two years, and Britain, in 2012, returned the £5 million of the looted assets directly to the Bayelsa State Government.
In an exclusive interview with Channels Television, Tuesday night, Malami revealed that the £4.2 million recovered from Ibori and his friends, though an infinitesimal fraction of the over £100 million that the former Delta State Governor and his cohorts reportedly salted to Britain, will be used to fund three federal projects, namely: the second Niger Bridge (scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2022), Abuja-Kano road, and Lagos-Ibadan Express road.
Malami had, earlier on Tuesday, with the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, announced the return of £4.2 million Ibori loot due in two weeks.
Asked by Channels Television why the recovered fund was not retuned to Delta State where it was stolen, the AGF said pointedly that unlike the Alamieyeseigha loot, the extant case was negotiated between two national governments and not sub-national governments. Besides, Malami further argued, the law that Ibori breached was a federal law.
“The major consideration relating to who is entitled to a fraction or perhaps the money in its entirety is a function of law and international diplomacy,” Malami said during the interview with Channels Television’s Seun Okinbaloye, on the popular programme, Politics Today.
“…All the processes associated with the recovery were consummated by the federal government and the federal government is, indeed, the victim of crime and not sub-national,” he said.
Asked to clarify if the British government had insisted that the money be spent on certain projects, the Minister said it was not “a matter of insistence but a matter of negotiation between two sovereign states.”
Experts believe that the Federal Government would have won a major victory in its anti-corruption war if it was able to get all the looted funds that Britain recovered from Ibori and friends repatriated to Nigeria.
Ibori had, in 2012, been convicted by a UK court after pleading guilty to 10 charges of fraud and money laundering.
But it took more than seven years of serious negotiations between Nigeria and Britain to secure the repatriation of the looted assets. This, according to the Minister, was substantially due to “judicial processes” which required that all appeals be exhausted before final forfeiture was granted.
“This,” he added, “hampered the speedy recovery of the looted assets.”
Malami refused to name other members of the Ibori gang (friends, family members) from whom the funds were recovered, saying that some legal processes were still ongoing, and naming names at this stage might amount to subjudice.
Malami, who also doubles as the Minister of Justice, said the government was pursuing the recovery of other looted assets, including more Ibori assets amounting to over £100 million.
He also revealed that another component of the assets looted by a former military dictator, General Sani Abacha, was also being pursued. The Abacha component is worth over $100 million, he added.
With some air of self-adulation, Malami also commented on the P&ID case in which Nigeria almost got a fine of $10 billion. He said the case was progressing in Nigeria’s favour even as he described the government’s efforts at upturning the fine as “a success story.”
“Our position as a government,” the AGF said, “is being strengthened day-in-day-out. …We are optimistic.”
On Abdulrasheed Maina…
Channels Television also took up Malami on the Abdulrashedd Maina’s case. The former chairperson of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) is standing trial for laundering over N2 billion in pension funds.
Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja, had signed the subpoenas on Monday, March 8, 2021, following applications by Maina,
Both the AGF, and the Governor of Central Bank, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, were asked to come and testify in the ongoing trial of the defunct PRTT chairman.
Also summoned were a former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, and human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN. They were ordered to appear in court separately on March 9, 10, and 11, 2021, respectively to give evidence.
But when Channels Television asked Malami if he would testify in court in the Maina case, he said could not say categorially yet if he would appear or not. Reason? He said as at the time he was being interviewed, he was yet to receive the subpoena. Even if or when he eventually receives it, his appearance would be determined by some considerations, notably the national interest which he said he, as Attorney General, swore to defend at all times.
D.S.P. Alamieyeseigha…
Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, who retired from the Nigeria Air Force in 1992 as a Squadron Leader, was elected Governor of Bayelsa State at the onset of democracy in 1992 on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. He won re-election in 2003.
But in September 2005, he was arrested by the London Metropolitan Police which detained him after finding about £1 million cash on him, and another £1.8 million in cash and accounts. He was promptly charged on three counts of money laundering. But after three weeks in custody, he was granted bail with conditions.
Though the court had ordered hm not to move outside London, Alamieyeseigha stealthily returned to Nigeria in November 2005, disguising as a woman, even while his trial was still ongoing in the British capital.
But on his return to the country, he was impeached in December 2005, and was later arrested by the EFCC which charged him for money laundering, among other corruption-related offences.
For the two years that his trial lasted, the former Bayelsa Governor was held in EFCC custody. He pleaded guilty to the charges in July 2007, and Justice Mohammed Shuaibu of the Federal High Court sentenced him to two years in prison.
However, Justice Shuaibu discounted the time Alamieyeseigha spent in detention from the time he was arrested in 2005, and he regained his freedom on July 27, 2007.
President Goodluck Jonathan, on March 12, 2013, granted Alamieyeseigha state pardon.
On October 10, 2015, the first elected governor of Bayelsa State died at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, UPTH, aged 62. He was presumed to have suffered cardiac arrest.
