The United States has asked the government of Nigeria to withdraw litigation it has instituted in the United Kingdom that hinders efforts by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to recover an additional $177 million in laundered funds held in trusts that name former military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha associate Atiku Bagudu, the current governor of Kebbi State, and his relatives as beneficiaries. It remains unclear whether the US will bring pressure to bear on President Muhammadu Buhari to direct the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami to withdraw the lawsuit that had shielded and protected Bagudu from prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
“The United States has asked the government of Nigeria to withdraw litigation it has instituted in the UK that hinders the US effort to recover these additional funds for the people of Nigeria. The United States entered into the trilateral agreement to repatriate the Jersey assets because of its longstanding commitment to recover asset for the benefit of those harmed by grand corruption and because of the important safeguards embodied in the agreement,” a statement by the DOJ said.
The statement was released by the US Department of Justice under the trilateral agreement signed on Monday, between the United States, Nigeria and Jersey to repatriate $308 million in assets stolen by Gen Abacha back to Nigeria. According to the agreement, the US and Jersey will transfer 100% of the net forfeited assets to Nigeria to support three critical infrastructure projects in the country. The statement further stated that in addition to the more than $308 million forfeited in Jersey, the Department of Justice was seeking to enforce its forfeiture judgment against approximately $30 million located in the UK and over $144 million in France.
In 2014, US District Judge John D. Bates for the District of Columbia had in 2014 entered judgment forfeiting approximately $500 million located in accounts around the world, as the result of a civil forfeiture complaint the US Department of Justice filed against more than $625 million traceable to money laundering involving the proceeds of Abacha’s corruption. After appeals in the United States were exhausted in 2018, the government of Jersey enforced the U.S. judgment against over $308 million located in that jurisdiction.
“The Department of Justice, on behalf of the U.S. government, has executed a trilateral agreement with the governments of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Nigeria) and the Bailiwick of Jersey (Jersey) to repatriate to Nigeria approximately $308 million traceable to the kleptocracy of former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha and his co-conspirators,” according to the statement published on the DOJ website.
The statement noted that the three critical projects to be executed with the $308m were previously authorized by President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian legislature. “Specifically, the laundered funds under this agreement will help finance the construction of the Second Niger Bridge, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Abuja-Kano road – investments that will benefit the citizens of each of these important regions in Nigeria.”
According to the statement, the agreement also includes key measures to ensure the transparency and accountability, including administration of the funds and projects by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), financial review by an independent auditor, and monitoring by an independent civil society organization with expertise in engineering and other areas.
The agreement, the statement added, also precludes the expenditure of funds to benefit alleged perpetrators of the corruption or to pay contingency fees for lawyers. It noted that the agreement reflects the sound principles for ensuring transparency and accountability adopted at the Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR) in December 2016 in Washington, D.C., which the US and the United Kingdom (UK) hosted with support from the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative of the World Bank and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
The statement said the case was brought under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative by a team of dedicated prosecutors in the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section working in partnership with the FBI. “General Abacha and his cronies robbed Nigerians of vast public resources and abused the U.S. and international financial systems to launder their criminal proceeds,” the statement quoted Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Today’s landmark agreement returns to the people of Nigeria hundreds of millions of the embezzled monies through a lawful process that ensures transparency and accountability,” Benczkowski further stated.
