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!”
To begin with,
here is a general timeline of the Abacha loot story:
*Gen Sani Abacha |
·
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.