Obasanjo and Goodluck to be questioned over what they did with Abacha loot returned to them

FORMER presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan are to be questioned by a House of Representatives panel over what they did with the millions of dollars they received as part of the Abacha loot refunds they received from foreign governments.

In 1998, military dictator General Sani Abacha suddenly passed away, revealing that he had looted the Nigerian treasury with impunity. It has since emerged that the money he stole could be as much as $5bn and some foreign governments like that of Switzerland have returned some of this cash to Nigeria.

Looking to find out what happened to this money, an 11-member panel of the House of Representatives chaired by a former chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, will begin work this week. While the two former leaders will be interviewed in their homes, finance minister Kemi Adeosun and the attorney-general of the federation Abubakar Malami are to appear in person before the National Assembly.

Others public figures who will appear before the panel include the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefiele, former finance minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and their predecessors who served during the tenure of the late President Umar Yar’Adua. On July 4, the House passed a resolution to probe the Abacha loot after President Muhammadu Buhari said the $322m recently negotiated with the Swiss government would be shared out to the poor and the vulnerable.

This followed a motion moved by a member from Kogi State, Hon Sunday Karimi, asking that the House set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the total Abacha loot recovered from 1998 till date and establish the sources and how the money was utilised. Hon Abdulrazak Namdas, the chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, explained that the speaker, Hon Yakubu Dogara, set up the committee so that it can bring all the speculation about the Abacha loot to rest.

Hon Namdas said: “The House wants to look into this Abacha loot issue thoroughly and lay the matter to rest. The mandate of the committee is to establish how much was recovered as Abacha loot.

“We have been hearing of loot recovery but how much is the total recovered by all the administrations since 1998? Also, what were the sources of the recovery? Was any part or all of the loot spent?  What was it spent on and what is the total balance?”

Earlier this month, the government, explained that the latest tranche of the loot would be disbursed to beneficiaries of its direct cash transfer programme. This has attracted a lot of criticism as many economists have said that rather than hand the money out to individuals, it should be invested in infrastructure.