US signs agreement to return $23M looted by former military ruler to Nigeria

By Ibrahim Garba Shuaibu

KANO, Nigeria (AA) - The US government has signed an agreement to repatriate $23 million laundered by Nigeria's former military ruler, according to Nigeria’s Justice Minister Abubakar Malami.

Nigeria has in the past recovered several other tranches of the loot, which are proceeds believed to have been diverted from public coffers by the military administration of Gen. Sani Abacha in the 1990s.

In 2020, the US also agreed to return over $308 million in confiscated funds to Nigeria.

In 2006, about $723 million of the loot was returned to Nigeria from Switzerland.

Malami said President Muhammadu Buhari has accepted the recovered loot to fund the completion of the Abuja-Kano road, Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the Second Niger Bridge, key transport routes of the country.

The agreement signing ceremony was held in the Attorney General's Office with US Ambassador to Nigeria Mary Beth Leonard representing Washington DC.

Malami said the decision to return the stolen funds was a product of a series of negotiations and meetings between Nigeria, the US Department of Justice and the UK National Crime Agency.

Leonard said the US department of Justice and the FBI seized these funds when they laundered money to the US and the UK.

“Combined with a $311.7m seized and repatriated with the assistance of the Bailiwick of Jersey and the government of Nigeria in 2020, this return brings the total amount of funds repatriated in this case by the US to more than $334.7 million," she added.