Jersey returns $149 million of Abacha money

Some US $149 million of missing state funds traced to the family of the late Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha have been returned to the Nigerian government by Jersey, an offshore-banking centre in the British-ruled Channel Islands, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said. She told reporters in the capital Abuja on Wednesday night that this sum was in addition to $618 million stashed away in Swiss banks which Switzerland had pledged to return to Nigeria. Okonjo-Iweala led a delegation to Switzerland last week for discussions on modalities for the release of these funds. Before her departure she said the Swiss authorities had agreed to return the money on the condition it would be spent on welfare programmes that would benefit ordinary Nigerians. “The $149 million is different from the $618 million that I went to Switzerland for,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “There are other countries, which have not been quite as forthcoming as Jersey Island has been. We hope that their effort in this regard will be an example that others will follow,” she added. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s elected government estimates over US $4 billion of public funds were siphoned into secret overseas accounts by the Abacha family and close associates during military strongman's five years in power. Abacha's iron rule of Africa’s most populous country and biggest oil exporter ended in 1998 when he died suddenly from an apparent heart attack. Obasanjo, who had been imprisoned by Abacha on suspicions of plotting a coup, was released soon afterwards and went on to win the presidential election 1999. He was returned to power for a second four-year term in a fresh poll last April. Soon after taking over as head of state, Obasanjo initiated moves to recover the funds stolen by Abacha. These investigations led to the freezing of several bank accounts controlled by Abacha and his family in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Lietchenstein and Jersey. Information Minister Chukwuemeka Chikelu said Obasanjo would visit Switzerland in December to press for the recovery of more missing funds that had been identified in various Swiss bank accounts.