Switzerland To Return Another $300m Abacha Funds

SAN FRANCISCO, January 11, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama has revealed that the Federal Government was expecting a repatriation of another $300m that was recovered from Late military president, Sani Abacha.

He said that the FG had been in touch with Switzerland, which, had earlier repatriated $700m to Nigeria, on the modalities for the repatriation of the looted funds.

Speaking in an interview with journalists in Abuja, Onyeama stated that the Federal Government was in discussion with the United Kingdom, the United States, among other foreign governments around the world, on how all looted funds could be recovered.

“We are in touch with Switzerland; they have recently recovered quite a significant amount of money and I met last week with Swiss representatives to work out the modality for the repatriation of the funds,” he said.

“The Swiss government has already repatriated over $700m from (the late Gen. Sani) Abacha loot and that agreement has been reached on how the money would be applied.

“They have also now recovered in the same context another $300m of which there is ongoing discussion to have that repatriated as well.

“There are discussions with other countries; United Kingdom for instance, as you all know, is one of the countries we are discussing with on how to recover looted funds.

The minister revealed that the repatriation was easy based on the trust earned by President Muhammadu Buhari' in his visits to the US and other countries.

Story by David Oputah