The Federal Executive Council (FEC) rose from its weekly meeting in the State House Abuja Wednesday with cheery news of the forthcoming repatriation of $500 million loot from United Kingdom, United States and France to Nigeria.
The money was part of the huge sums stolen by the former despotic leader, Gen. Sani Abacha.
Making
the disclosure while briefing journalists at the end of the meeting,
the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice,
Malam Abubakar Malami, said the move was the fallout of negotiations
between the federal government and the three countries.
According
to him, the expected sum is coming barely a few months after the
repatriation of $322 million Abacha loot to Nigeria from Switzerland
following an agreement signed by Nigeria and Switzerland.
Malami, who said the processes leading to the repatriation and the aftermath were reported to the council Wednesday,
also disclosed that the council approved the payment of N500 million as
legal fee to lawyers engaged in the litigation between the federal
government and MTN over the N1 trillion fine imposed on the latter by
the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC).
“The
council approved the payment of professional fees to lawyers engaged by
the federal government relating to the MTN case instituted against the
federal government in pursuance of penalty of over N1 trillion imposed
by the government on MTN.
“MTN,
as you will recall, instituted a case seeking to retrain the federal
government from recovering the over N1 trillion imposed on it. The
federal government engaged the services of lawyers to put up defence on
its behalf. As a result, the case was eventually settled by the parties
amicably and arising from that settlement the lawyers were entitled to
their fees.
“The
federal government has now sanctioned the payment of N500 million for
the N330 billion agreed upon for the alleged certain breaches in their
operations. This amount is less than one per cent of the fee instead of
the internationally recognised fee which is pegged at five per cent.
“Finally
was a report on the global forum on assets recovery. You will recall
that in December 2017, the federal government participated in global
forum on asset recovery in Washington DC and during that forum, Nigeria
and Switzerland signed agreement that paved the way for the repatriation
of $322 million relating to looted assets and on the account of that
the amount was eventually repatriated back to Nigeria.
“What
transpired was only reported back to the council today. The report
today was not only about the signing of the agreement but the report of
the eventual repatriation of the amount of money that was signed and
agreed to be repatriated during the forum.
“Nigeria
has also engaged other countries including the UK, US, France and
others in further negotiations relating to repatriation and I am happy
to report that we are almost concluding the processes relating to the
repatriation of additional $500 million,” Malami said.
Malami
also responded to questions on the legality and legitimacy of the
declaration of June 12 as a public holiday, as well as the conferment of
posthumous awards on the late Chief MKO Abiola and Chief Gani Fawehinmi
as well as Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe.
