•Nigeria owes N75b judgment debts
Nigeria will receive additional $750 million “Abacha loot”, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has said.
Malami, who spoke at an interactive session with the House of Representatives Committee on Justice, yesterday said his ministry would also recover £6.9 million “Ibori loot”.
He said: “In respect of of the recovery of looted assets, the ministry will engage in a Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements or other bilateral and multilateral instruments to seek cooperation with other jurisdictions to ensure the repatriation of illicitly- acquired assets in foreign jurisdictions.
“ The collaboration will equally involve the engagement of foreign-based counsel to attend to matters on behalf of the Federal Government. Low-hanging fruits being targeted in this initiative include $750 million ‘Abacha loot’ as well as £6.9 million of the ‘Ibori loot’. In the long run, the ministry will coordinate the recovery of billions of dollars in foreign jurisdictions, based on current estimations.”
The minister also said the country owed N75 billion in judgment debts. “ It is equally necessary to highlight the fact that the ministry’s liability for judgment debt is N75 billion.
“ The ministry has, however, proposed N16 billion to meet a portion of the outstanding sum in 2016, of which the Budget Office proposed N709, 155,140.00, which does not meet one per cent of the debts,” he said.
On terrorism, he said: “My ministry is processing approximately 800 terrorism cases for prosecution. The resources required for the successful prosecution of these cases as well as the coordination of the Criminal Justice Sector as envisaged under the ACIA, were captured in the proposal made us to the Ministry of Finance.”
Chairman of the Committee Razak Atunwa said the purpose of the interaction was to allow the committee appraise the situation in the ministry and deliberate on finding solutions to challenges it might encounter.