Again, Reps summon Malami for allegedly halting repatriation of $60bn loot

The House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on Assessment and Status of All Recovered Loots – Movable and Immovable Assets from 2002 to 2020 by Agencies of the Federal Government for Effective Efficient Management and Utilisation on Wednesday again summoned the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) for allegedly halting the repatriation of $60 billion loot from Texas, United States of America.

The Committee is chaired by Hon. Adejoro Adeogun, (APC-Ondo) summoned Malami when a former Special Prosecutor to the Special Presidential Investigation Panel (SPIP), Mr Tosin Ojaomo, appeared before it

Ojaomo also revealed that before the panel which was headed by Okoi Obono-Obla was disbanded, it investigated the Auditor General of the Federation for the withdrawal of N10 billion from the account of NHIS in two tranches.

He further revealed that the panel investigated a Director in a Ministry and recovered 86 luxury vehicles, some of the vehicles are bulletproof cars worth the sum of N700 million.

Ojaomo also pointed out that a certain account domiciled at Polaris Bank was uncovered by the panel where the sum of $223 million was kept under the guise of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) operations account

Ojaomo added that the account was not linked to the Treasury Single Account (TSA), but a stand-alone account of NNPC.

He said the panel invited the Bank to explain what the money was meant for, adding that when the explanation of the Bank was not satisfactory, it was ordered to remit the money to TSA, and the bank later pleaded that it should be allowed to pay N10 million every month.

The Special Prosecutor noted that after the Chairman of the Panel and some members were suspended in 2019, the AGF was directed to take over the cases being investigated by the panel.

According to him, “the projection of the panel based on what we were working with at that time, we had a projection of even making other foreign recoveries, because intelligence was given to the panel that the sum of $60 billion belonging to the Nigerian government is currently been domiciled at Texas, United States of America, at that time, which the panel has started working on to making recovery. The money was stolen from Nigeria through the NNPC. All this has been taken over by the AGF.

While ruling on the market, the Committee chairman said that the allegations were weighty, saying there was a need to ask the AGF to cause an appearance.

According to him, “these are weighty allegations, at this stage, we will have to stop you, not that we are trying to stop you from speaking, but because like we said in my place, you don’t shave a man behind him when he is not there. We think we will have to recall you at a different date and we will ask the Attorney General to make a reappearance here so that you can present this to him. You will avail us of all these documents so that we will formally write a letter to him

“This is not just inviting him to come and speak now, you have made weighty allegations alleging that this money belonging to Nigeria could have been recovered but for some reasons, he sat on them for whatever reasons. I don’t want to believe that that’s really what happened but that’s the allegation they have made.”

Earlier, the Managing Director of Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Mr Uche Orji, while appearing before the committee revealed that the federal government through the Ministry of Justice entered into a trilateral agreement
into a trilateral agreement with the US, United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland for the repatriation of looted funds.

He added that an agreement has been reached with the US government for the repatriation of $311 million, while an agreement has been reached with the UK government for repatriation of £4.2 million and €5.5 million from the Republic of Ireland.

According to him, “we are aware that there is an agreement struck with the Ministry of Justice and counterpart countries. We’ve been notified that they have reached this agreement, that the funds will be sent to us, but we have not received it.”

This came just as the Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, who was also grilled by the Committee said that at the moment that the anti-graft agency had recovered over N2.1 billion.

According to him, “as of today, what is there is N2.1 billion. Over time, however, the cumulative of what we received is over N7 billion and N5 billion has gone back to the government. It has taken it over time

“As I said, during Covid, we did an analysis of what was no longer subject to investigation to court processes, it was about two something (over N2 billion). Based on current operations, ongoing investigations, we have N2.1 billion. It is not for the government to take. As I said earlier, we have the power to return money to the victim.”

On his own, the Chairman of the EFCC, Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, disclosed that he was yet to refresh his memory regarding the total amount recovered by the agency, saying that he was barely 100 days in office

He however added that the agency had the available record of the amount recovered.

Bawa while answering questions on the much-celebrated $43 million loot recovered from Ikoyi in 2017, said that the money had been forfeited to the Federal Government coffer.

He however added that only money forfeited and had gone to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) account could be utilised by the Federal Government.

Bawa said that the EFCC only relied on the annual budget for its operational cost, adding that the agency does not take money from recovered loot for operations.

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