Buhari traces looted funds to UK, Switzerland, others




The Federal Government has started tracing looted Nigerian funds to foreign nations with the aim of recovering and repatriating them.

The Federal Government specifically targets the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland and other European jurisdictions where it believes corrupt officials have been stashing public funds.

This move came on the heels of the declaration by President Muhammadu Buhari on his first day in Aso Villa office that he inherited an almost empty treasury from his predecessor, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, thus vowing that his administration would recover all the looted funds stashed in foreign banks by corrupt Nigerians.



“The next three months may be hard, but billions of dollars can be recovered, and we will do our best,” the President was quoted as saying in a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina.

Some of the countries where looted funds from Nigeria have been kept in the past include Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Others are France, Germany, British Virgin Islands and other tax havens spread across the globe.

Adesina, who confirmed the move on Thursday, said, the search for the looted funds will not be limited to these countries but anywhere in the world where they may be hidden.

He said, “The search will not only cover UK, US, Switzerland, Germany and other known havens for Nigerian looted funds but will cover everywhere under the sun. Anywhere and everywhere that the looted funds are, we have an assurance from the United States of America to assist us to repatriate these funds from anywhere under the sun.”

It waslearnt that the Federal Government’s investigation was meant to identify the individuals who engaged in corrupt practices and ascertain the sums of money involved with a view to repatriating them.

One of our correspondents also learnt that anti-corruption agencies will play a prominent role in the exercise targeted at corrupt government officials in the recent past administration and their private sector collaborators, among others.

To this end, Adeniyi told newsmen that the Federal Government is planning to engage the services of foreign private investigators to help trace and find looted funds belonging to the people of Nigeria.

“Everything that needs to be done to get all those funds repatriated will be done, including engaging private investigators,” the Presidential spokesperson added.

Buhari had lamented that officials of the recent past government jettisoned all financial and administrative instructions put in place in parastatals and agencies while embracing impunity, lack of accountability and financial recklessness in the management of national resources.

This, the President decried, had thrown the country into financial crisis.

It was learnt that foreign search, which is expected to be thorough, will, among others, be directed at foreign banks with the ultimate aim of getting incontrovertible facts and figures that can aid the government in collaboration with the US and other members of the G7 nations to recover stolen funds stashed abroad.

Adesina said the identification of foreign banks being used to stash stolen funds was one of the mandates given to Buhari during a meeting he had with President Barak Obama at the recent G-7 summit in Germany.

He said, “When the President met with the G7, the promise that the American President gave him was that Nigeria should just provide all the facts, the figures, the statistics, including the banks.

“He promised that if Nigeria could make the information available, then the US will help in recovering the stolen funds.”

When asked specifically if the Federal Government had started identifying the banks, the presidential spokesman said, “Yes. In fact, the President said the government will spend the next three months identifying banks, individuals and monies that have been ferried out of this country.

“The assurance the President has given is that within the next three months, we have to concentrate on getting those monies back to the government coffers,” he added.

Buhari had said early in the week that his administration had received firm assurances of cooperation from the US and other countries in his quest to recover and repatriate funds stolen from Nigeria.

Buhari, while granting audience to members of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council led by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, had said that it was now up to Nigeria to provide the international community with the facts and figures needed to drive the recovery effort.

He said he would be busy, in the next three months, getting the facts that would help in recovering the stolen funds.

“In the next three months, our administration will be busy getting those facts and the figures to help us recover our stolen funds in foreign countries,’’ the President had said.

It was learnt that the Federal Government may also go after property owned by public fund looters in London, Dubai, US, Saudi Arabia and other choice international real estate markets where Nigerians are known to be some of the biggest buyers.

It was also learnt that the Department for International Development, a UK government department responsible for administering overseas aid, had alerted the President on over N1.3tn stolen during the last administration, where it is kept and who the beneficiaries are.

This money, a source close to the DFID said, is a low hanging fruit that the President can pluck during his first six months in the office with the help of the UK, US, and other G7 members without hassle.

“This was one of the agreement reached between President Buhari and the G7 countries when the former attended their meeting in Germany,” the DFID source told newsmen.

The US in March 2014 had ordered a freeze on $458m in assets stolen by the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, and his accomplices. Abacha died in office in 1998.

The US Justice Department named two bank accounts in the Bailiwick of Jersey and two other accounts in France as depositories of $313m and $145m Abacha loot respectively. Four other investment portfolios and three bank accounts in Britain were also frozen, with an estimated value of at least $100m.

The US also named nine financial institutions – Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank and Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, now JPMorgan Chase, and New York-based units of Britain’s Barclays Bank and Germany’s Commerz bank – as places where some of the Abacha loots were laundered.

Similarly, the Crown Prosecution Service in the United Kingdom had estimated former governor of Delta State, James Onanefe Ibori’s loot stolen to be around $250m.

Ibori, who is serving jail term for corruption charges in a UK prison, was said to have bought six property in London, including a six-bedroom house with indoor pool in Hampstead for £2.2m and a flat opposite the nearby Abbey Road recording studios. There was also a property in Dorset, a £3.2m mansion in South Africa and further real estate in Nigeria.

He also owned a fleet of armoured Range Rovers costing £600,000, a £120,000 Bentley, a £300,000 Mercedes Maybach, and a private jet for £12m.

President Buhari said the last administration mismanaged the economy while stating that it was a disgrace that state governments in the country can’t pay salaries; hence, the need to recover looted funds wherever they may be hidden.

Commenting on the development, a former Minister of Finance and elder statesman, Chief Olu Falae, commended the move and described it as laudable and desirable.

Falae expressed the belief that looted funds could be recovered because the whole world is now talking about promotion of transparency in governance.

“If some monies could be recovered from Abacha loot in the recent past, then it will be possible to recover looted funds from others as well,” he said.

The former minister, however, urged the President to follow due process while going after the looted funds.

Falae said, “It is just that we have to follow due process because we cannot force the countries where the looted funds were stashed to return them because they are not subject to our authorities. But if we follow due process, it might be possible for us to recover those monies.

“The monies should not just be recovered; they should be used to develop the country. There should be no exception; anybody who has looted the public fund should be made to return it. Not only monies stashed abroad should be recovered, those stolen and kept in the country should also be recovered. I wish the President good luck in his move to achieve this initiative.”

Also, the Convener of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, Mr. Debo Adeniran, asked Buhari to follow the normal channel through mutual legal assistant treaty that Nigeria has with the countries where such monies were stashed, if he really wants the stolen funds repatriated.

He said, “The President may succeed if he invokes the letter of the mutual legal assistant treaty, but I am not sure Nigeria has such with Switzerland although that country has been voluntarily returning Abacha loot to Nigeria.

“There are several other countries that may not be willing to return the volume of the money that was kept in their banks by the looters except there is international status that Nigeria can invoke to compel them to repatriate the fund.

“Nigeria has to go through legal process except it was one of the wish list that Buhari presented to the G7 countries. We have expressed it in some fora that we expected that Buhari would make it the top of his agenda at the G7 summit in Germany that he should get the G7 to cooperate with Nigeria on how not to allow looted funds by Nigeria’s public officials to be kept in their financial institutions.”

Adeniran also asked Buhari to prevail on the governments of the countries where the public funds were being stashed to assist Nigeria to expose those behind the practice.

He said, “Property acquired in those countries must also be investigated and if it is discovered that the property were procured through proceeds of corruption, they should be confiscated on behalf of Nigeria, sell them and repatriate the money to Nigeria.”

The National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere Renewal Group, a pan-Yoruba organisation, Mr. Kunle Famoriyo, expressed his support for Buhari’s move, which he described as a positive one for the country.

However, he blamed the US and other Western countries for doing nothing in the past to stop their banks from receiving stolen funds from corrupt individuals and corporations in Nigeria, while calling for the punishment of those found culpable.

He said, “It is our hope that something positive will come out of it considering that the banks in the US and some other Western countries were part of the laundering. They collected money from corrupt Nigerians and as far as we know, their countries did nothing to make sure the banks do not collect stolen money from Nigeria.

“Those found culpable in looting our public funds should be tried in the law courts. It’s not enough to collect the stolen funds without any sanctions meted out to them to serve as deterrent to others. Punishments meted out to corrupt individuals are also not commensurate with the crime committed, and this should be corrected.”

In addition, Famoriyo advised the Federal Government to restructure the country and enforce true federalism, which he said, would empower the states.

He said, “Development should be from bottom up and the other way around. What we need is true federalism; this unitary system cannot help us because it’s not sustainable. It’s a system that encourages states to be going to the Federal Government every month with cap in hand.”
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  1. Everybody must be included not only the past administration,don't do what you did last time when you were head of state,placing Shagari in a presidential house arrest and throwing Ekwueme into prison....Everybody must be involved on this including Tinubu,OBJ,Atiku,TJ Danjuma,Yaradua's wife,Okorocha Rochas,Amechi Rotimi,Nyako, and so many of them.

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    1. Yes anon! There should be no sentiment this time around.

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    2. Ride on you are right

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    3. People of Little Mind talking.

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    4. True talk bros.

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    5. He is on the right direction. My question is when these funds are repatriated what will he do with it? Develop the country dilapidated infrastructures. Or just publicize it on the mass media with no good account of it. We hear Billions of foreign currencies repatriated from overseas bank account frequently by his predeccessors but we don't really see what those public funds were used to develop. He has another opportunity to prove his credibility.

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  2. Previous Governments have been fighting this cases, looted funds "repatriated" yet we did not see the benefits. So But arm's case is not new and we are waiting to see the end. He says the next three months and it is not far from now. IBB, OBJ, ABDUL SALAMI and even SHAGARI'S government should be investigated too!

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  3. Can we please stop disturbing this man with politics? Leave him to do as his power can carry him, after all, PDP has ruled for 16 years and nothing has ever been recover from both friends and enemies. Allow Buhari to do his own and when it comes to your turn, chase his government too and recover if any.

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    1. Who told you nothing was recovered by PDP. All the Abacha loot that was recovered, was it recovered by a Ghost?

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    2. Can they account for the money?

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  4. Story for the gods

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  5. The most important thing is to recover as much that can stabilize our economy, period.

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    1. You're right. stability of the economy is what matters most, even if all is not recovered.

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  6. Sai Baba! All the past and present governors from all the Oil Producing States must be investigated with special emphasis to Chibuike Amaechi and Emmanuel Uduaghan. This guys are clever thieves and they need to be investigated properly.
    More grace to your elbow.

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  7. The past administration stole public funds more than any other administration. The amount of money stolen by the past administration can not be compare to other administration. Therefore, they should be probe thoroughly.

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  8. Mr. Anonymous, some times when I read thro' your comments it makes me laugh.
    Anyway, your level of reasoning tells one your level of education and your level of understanding of Nigeria as a country. You always reason like a kindergarten, infact you reason the same way like GoodLuck Jonathan. Are you of the same parent ? ok, no wonder you think like yesterday pikin.

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    1. Very well said, it's unfortunate how some people have turned themselves to enemies of progress in support of a clearly corrupt and clueless government.

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  9. Until we severely punish those who have stolen from us, things will never change. Even if we can't get some of the money back because of existing treaties, etc, those that the funds can be traced to must be made to serve long prison terms. If it was in China, these looters would all be buried alive. I don't trust our legal system, that's a major issue. Bring in judges from countries like the USA and let them handle these cases. Our local judges are too corrupt and will set all the thieves free. Talk about Abacha, yes we did recover some funds from him, but why are institutions and other places in the North still named after Abacha? We celebrate him and give him awards post-mortem, yet we know that he was bad for the country. Are we really serious about punishing those who have wrecked us, or do we simply talk, but continue the practice of evil and corruption?

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    1. Hmm, notice how Buhari hasn't even mentioned prosecuting any of the looters. But this was the majour promise he made when seeking votes. It's obvious we are not serious yet.

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    2. Prosecuting them first will not help the economy of the country, but getting back the money for your salary to be paid is the most important thing then comes prosecution. Do not forget that our judiciary has not yet been reformed, hence sending cases there is yet a waste of time. What we need is the money to salvage the Nira against the dollar boy

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  10. Fast fast please Mr president. These thieves have finished Our country

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  11. W do not need stories on pages of papers. All we want to see is action, action action action. we want to see the looted funds recovered not " i will recover it". please use your good office judiciously no ethnic, tribal, religion and political sentiment. May God Almighty give you the wisdom and courage to step on toes to do a good job in this corrupt country of ours. thank you BABA

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  12. Mr President, ......and don't forget to spread your drag net to Dubai and the rest where they squander stolen funds on flimsy celebrations. Another group of rogues to be visited are career officers,especially those that have robbed pensioners of their personal emolument. I pray for God's guidance and energy for your administration to succeed. Long live our country.

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