British banks urged to return money looted by Nigerians

The UK-based Jubilee 2000 Coalition has urged banks in Britain to freeze and help return an estimated US $55 billion in ill-gotten gains banked abroad by Nigerians, AFP reported a Jubilee 2000 official as saying on Thursday. "The Coalition is pressurizing such financial institutions to freeze and release the looted funds, which rightly belongs to Nigerians," Jubilee 2000's Adrian Lovett told Nigeria's Vice President Atiku Abubakar. The main objective of Jubilee 2000, a global NGO, is the cancellation of the debts of the world's poorest countries. Abubakar called for the international community's help in solving Nigeria's debt burden and complementing efforts by the government "to retrieve all stolen money stashed away by its citizens in foreign banks", according to AFP. He said the government had already recovered some of the stolen money and was gathering information to recover more.