Abacha Loot: Saved, Spent Or Stolen?

By Sonala Olumhense

Former Nigeria leader Olusegun Obasanjo has explained what became of the funds recovered from Nigeria’s best advertised kleptocrat, General Sani Abacha.

Calling the court of law and Nigerians who want to know what he did with the money he recovered, “stupid,” he dignified his critics with some wisdom last week.

“I don’t keep account,” he said.  “All Abacha loots were (sic) sent to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and every bit of it was reported to Minister of Finance…If they want to know what happened to the money, they should call CBN governor or call the Minister of Finance!”

*Gen Sani Abacha

To begin with, here is a general timeline of the Abacha loot story:

·         May 29, 1999: Obasanjo takes office.

·         July 1999: Nigeria begins civil proceedings in London against Mohammed Abacha, Abubakar Bagudu and companies owned by them, in connection with a debt buy-back transaction in which they had made an illicit profit of about 500 million DEM. Freezing and disclosure orders having been obtained, $420 million in assets are identified and frozen, and Nigeria demonstrates to the courts that Mohammed Abacha had failed to disclose over $1.1m in assets in Switzerland and Luxembourg.

·         Mid-September 1999: Obasanjo hires Italian lawyer Enrico Monfini to pursue assets stolen by Sani Abacha and his family. Pursuit begins from a Nigeria police investigation which showed that between 1994 and 1998, Abacha and his sons had looted the CBN of about $2 billion and transferred the money abroad.

·         30 September 1999: Monfrini lodges with Switzerland a request for interim freezing orders. Granted within two weeks, this paves the way for the lodging of a formal request for mutual assistance by Nigeria on 20 December 1999. It is discovered that all of the bank accounts identified in the request have been closed, and their assets transferred to such places as Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, the UK and Jersey.

·         November 1999: Nigeria, deploying a parallel strategy with the Attorney General of Geneva of a criminal complaint for fraud, money laundering and participation in a criminal organisation, requests to be admitted in the proceedings as a party suing for damages. This is granted, leading to a blanket freezing order in which the names of the suspects, their aliases and their companies are sent to all Swiss banks.

·         Within days, many accounts with assets of over $700m, are frozen in Switzerland as banks report and dutifully monitor suspicious accounts, including the receiving and paying accounts.

·         On the basis of the criminal proceedings in Geneva, Nigeria lodges requests for mutual assistance with Luxembourg, UK, Liechtenstein and Jersey, and within months, an additional $1.3 billion are frozen in those jurisdictions.