U.S. Agrees to Repatriate $321m of Abacha’s Loot, Nigeria Says

LAGOS (Capital Markets in  Africa): American authorities have agreed to repatriate $321 million of funds taken out of the country by late military dictator Sani Abacha, according to Nigerian Justice Minister Abubakar Malami.

The sum will be sent from the Island of Jersey in the U.S. within the next three months and used to fund ongoing construction projects, including two major highways connecting the commercial heartbeat of Lagos to Ibadan in the country’s southwest, and the national capital, Abuja, to Kano in the north. Funds will also be used to complete a second bridge across the Niger River, he said.

The agreement between the two countries will be signed next week, Malami said.

Nigeria has been plagued for decades by graft and came 146th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2019 perception of corruption index, discouraging repatriation of stolen loot in the past. Authorities have accused Sani Abacha, who died in office in 1998, of siphoning more than $3 billion from the state purse to foreign bank accounts.

The government is expecting funds from the confiscated assets of James Ibori, a former governor convicted of money laundering in the U.K. and proceeds from the planned auction sale of a yacht seized from Nigerian businessman Kola Aluko.

Source: Bloomberg Business News