The Attorney General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), on Thursday, disclosed that the Federal Government had concluded negotiation with Switzerland on the return of $321 million recovered from family of the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha.
The AGF said Nigeria had recently recovered the sum of $86 million from the controversial Malabu Restrained Funds from United Kingdom.
Malami disclosed this on Thursday, in Abuja, while addressing the Pre-Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR) Consultative meeting with the theme: Building an Ending Framework for Asset Recovery.
The AGF stressed further that with the conclusion of negotiation, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be signed by parties at the Global Forum on Assets Recovery meeting coming up on December 4th – 6th, 2017, in Washington and that the repatriation would follow within weeks as agreed by the parties.
He stressed the need for the international community to ensure the implementation of the measures considered and adopted at the London Anti-Corruption Summit in May, 2016.
The AGF also said government is willing to support the transparent return of stolen assets and urged the international community to improve on procedure for faster return of assets to enable Nigeria meet the sustainable development goals.
“It is widely acknowledged that corruption undermines economic development, political stability, rule of law, social development, disrupts social order and destroys public trust in the governance system. It is an established fact that corruption which is linked to organised crime, terrorism and insecurity is one of the reasons for underdevelopment”, he said.
Malami lamented that resources and funds meant for development of infrastructure in education, health and security sectors, among others had been stolen and laundered in different parts of the world.
He said President Mohammadu Buhari in May, 2015 made a commitment to tackle corruption and equally focussed on the return of stolen assets from various jurisdictions and that Nigeria had set a clear targets towards improving transparency in the management of assets through Treasury Single Account (TSA) and the Bank Verification Number (BVN).
According to him, Nigeria has implemented the United Nations Convention Against Corruption requirement through the development of National Strategy on Anti-Corruption and currently reviewing the anti-corruption laws and that the government has signed the Open Government Partnership initiative and completed the National Action Plan for its practical implementation in Nigeria.
He expressed happiness that the Civil Society Organisations were involved in the negotiation of the Memoranda of Understanding and would also be involved in monitoring the use of the funds.
Earlier in his welcome address, Rev. David Ugolor, Director, African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) noted that Global Forum on Asset Recovery established as an outcome of the London 2016 Anti- Corruption Summit hosted by former British Prime Minister, David Cameron would build upon the experiences of the Arab Forum on Asset Recovery (AFAR) and the Ukraine Forum on Asset Recovery (UFAR).
According to him, “the core objective of GFAR is to convene practitioner experts to provide an effective opportunity for countries to cooperate on asset recovery cases.
“It also tries to highlight the importance of strong political commitment, multijurisdictional coordination and practitioner interaction”, he said and urged the international community to work the talk by fulfilling some of the commitments made during the London summit, which. had direct implication for anti-corruption in Nigeria.
“We are eager to see how these commitments would translate to an expeditious return to Nigeria, assets belonging to Nigeria stashed away in the UK, US and other countries.”, the ANEEJ boss added.
Ugolor identified the need for Nigeria to evolve a new national asset recovery design to stem the illicit financial transactions still going on in our national dealings and seek a way to possibly overhaul the existing anti-corruption agencies to grapple with the antics of fraudsters.
“The anti-corruption agencies will need to explore more creative strategies to respond to the new large scale indices of corruption in both the public and private sectors.
“We need to strengthen our legal and institutional anti-corruption systems through the introduction of innovative legislative agenda. The Proceeds of Crime Bill and other anti-money laundering reform bill deserve urgent attention, particularly with the increasing reports of the looting of public resources”, he added.
In their various speeches, the British Ambassador to Nigeria, Paul Arkwright, Swiss Ambassador, Eric Mayoraz and Michael H. Bonner, Senior Police Advisor commended the Nigerian government for collaborating with Civil Society Organizations to fight corruption and in tackling illicit financial flows.
They pledged the support and cooperation of their home countries in repatriating stolen funds stashed away in banks at their countries back to Nigeria in due course.
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