We Have Returned $322.5 Million Abacha Loot With Interest – Swiss Envoy

The government of Switzerland says it has returned all the stolen money and assets stashed in their country by the late Nigerian Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha with an additional $1.5 million as interest.

Ambassador Pio Wennubst, the Assistant Director-General and Head, Global Cooperation Department, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation stated this on Monday while speaking to newsmen in New York.

According to Wennubst, the original amount was $321 million but the Swiss government repatriated about $322.5 million (N116.11billion) to the Nigerian government without conditions attached.

“We returned 321 million dollars including the interests. We returned all the amount, $322.5million including the interest for the time that the funds were blocked,” Wennubst said.

“We are not talking about the condition. There was a programme on the social safety net that was developed by the Government of Nigeria and the Bank. After discussing, the only condition set by the judiciary, not by us, was that the return of this asset should have been monitored by the World Bank and this is where we worked on,” he added.

Confirming the recovery, the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, through her Special Adviser, Media and Communications, Oluyinka Akintunde said the money was received into a Special Account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on December 18, 2017 from the Swiss Government.

The Abacha loot which was originally deposited in Luxemborg is a fraction of the billions of dollars allegedly looted during Abacha’s rule from 1993 to 1998 and was frozen in 2014 by a Swiss court after a legal procedure against the late leader’s son, Abba Abacha.