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Black Budget and why these men who say Abacha did not loot from Nigeria believe so

There have been series of unanswered questions and bewilderment at the mention of Abacha loot, with many making references to the late General Sani Abacha, the Military Head of State between 1993 and 1998.

The recent to be heard about the loot is the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC)’s letter to the former Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, inviting her to come and give explanations of how $250million of the $500million said to be recovered from the family was withdrawn.

It was reported that about $36,155,000 (N13,015,800 billion) out of the $250million was also withdrawn in cash “without any purpose” on March 2nd, 9th, 16th and 18th of 2015.

When Obasanjo assumed office in 1999, he initiated a proceeding in London against Mohammed Abacha, Abubakar Bagudu, and companies owned by them, in connection with a debt buy-back transaction in which they were said to have made an illicit profit of about 500 million DEM (Germany Deutsche Mark).

Freezing and disclosure orders having been obtained, $420 million in assets were identified and frozen, and Nigeria demonstrated to the courts that Mohammed Abacha had failed to disclose over $1.1m in assets in Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Before the end of that year, Obasanjo had hired an Italian lawyer, Enrico Monfini, to help discover stolen assets by Sani Abacha and his family.

Investigations commenced and it was revealed that between 1994 and 1998, about $2 billion had been looted from the CBN and transferred abroad.

Further investigations revealed that close to $5 billion was stashed in different accounts belonging to Abacha’s family.

In 2002, a deal was reportedly signed with Abacha’s family to recover about $1.2 billion; the Abachas would keep $100 million and par bonds worth $300 million.

By 2005, former Minister of Finance, Okonjo-Iweala, announced that Nigeria has recovered from the Abachas $458 million, and about $2 billion total of assets after about 500 $million was reportedly repatriated the previous year.

In 2014, Nigeria and the Abacha family reached an agreement for the Country to get back the funds, which had been frozen, in return for dropping a complaint against the former military ruler’s son, Abba Abacha.

Abba was charged by a Swiss court with money-laundering, fraud, and forgery in April 2005, after being extradited from Germany, and later spent 561 days in custody.

Fast forward to 2017, the latest money returned to Nigeria was 321 million dollars in assets seized from the family of the former military ruler.

While the money is always being referred to as Abacha’s loot, prominent Nigerian leaders have disagreed with the term, saying the former head of State did not steal from the Government coffers.

Jeremiah Useni

According to the former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Arewa Consultative Forum and also a prominent member in Abacha’s Government, the funds recovered were that of his son, as they never found money in his (Abacha) account.

“They never said this was the money found in Abacha’s account. It was his boys, his children, they never said they found money in Abacha’s account, they were talking of Mohammed (Abacha).”

Useni further stated that people assume that Abacha had knowledge of the looted funds due to his son’s involvement, but that is contrary to the fact.

“To the best of my knowledge, compared to what we saw later, Abacha did nothing.

 “I don’t have the same bank account with him, but as a part of that government, I know that the man was very careful with spending government money and that was why he set up the Petroleum Trust Fund and we all know the usefulness of that fund.”

Ishaya Bamaiyi

A former Chief of Army Staff iterated that the term “Abacha’s Loot” was created by the Media and the insinuation that he looted Nigerians dry was untrue.

Bamaiyi said the money was agreed to be kept in places for easy accessibility.

“I am not defending Abacha; I am not saying things did not go wrong. What I know is that we sat down and agreed that the monies should be kept in a place so that we can have access to them. I don’t know if something else happened after that time.

“If you remember, we had problems in Sierra Leone and Liberia once and it was monies from the Abacha regime that we used to buy weapons and ammunition to help those countries fight.”

President Muhammadu Buhari and former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida, also held similar opinions, stating that the late Abacha was not the villain in the story of what is now known as Abacha’s loot.

Major Hamza Al-Mustapha

Al-Mustapha was the Chief Security Officer of General Abacha and also an operative in the Intelligence unit of the Nigerian Army.

According to the CSO, he heard the word “Abacha loot” for the first time in 1999, which left him bewildered.

He said the monies being talked about were kept in foreign accounts to stave off the threat of sanction against the then military government by the international community in order that Nigeria could remain afloat.

 “During the time of Abacha, sanctions were threatened upon Nigeria. And at the request of some notable Nigerians, including traditional rulers, key politicians, and businessmen from the North and South, some modalities were taken to allow some monies to be saved in some foreign accounts abroad so that when sanctions come, that money will be able to keep Nigeria afloat. At that time, Chief Tom Ikimi, was the foreign affairs Minister.

“These stakeholders can still testify to what that money was meant for. And I can remember many of the big men who attended the Abuja meeting where this decision was taken. They were many that the council hall in the Villa could not contain them. There are many big men you can ask to get all these issues.”

Al-Mustapha noted that it was those Abacha had issues with when he was in Government that were hell-bent on smearing his name.

While they have continually defended the former Head of States’ innocence, it has left little impression on the Media who still refer to The Abacha Loot.

It is however not uncommon to see governments with immense international relations problems take measures to create Plan B in terms of holding monies. Private businessmen are also known to be used by the government in this circumstance to hold money from the unsuspecting eyes of the international community.

On the flip side, these monies are sometimes embezzled by those they are entrusted with. But the fact that not much of Abacha’s men have been docked for corruption may also not argue well in favour of those who say Abacha looted the treasury dry.

Nigeria was targeted by a formidable coalition, including the European Union, South Africa, Canada, and the United States, in November and December 1995 as they seek to force it into a democracy.

The United States asked industrial countries to join it in banning all new foreign investment in Nigeria and in freezing financial assets that the country’s leaders may have in their banks. It also asked them to halt joint sporting events once this summer’s Olympic Games are over and to ban Government-sponsored cultural contacts.

Interestingly the United States, which as of the time, buys half of Nigeria’s oil export, carefully excluded oil from what it sanctioned Nigeria on.

Black Budget

Fund and spending secrecy is not altogether strange to governments all over the world, as Hamza Mustapha has claimed in the past.

A Black Budget is a sum of money budgeted for items, usually security and intelligence, which is not captured in the public budget. The US has a black budget of 50 billion dollars while Russia kept about 21% of its budget black in 2015.

The existence of such schemes and the claims made by Abacha’s men and sympathizers calls for a National conversation which the Media is not championing, as it should, nor allowing.

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