but my God! When you look at the details,
The Nigerian Government
has accused Switzerland of conning the country, as it tries to recover stolen
funds lo usatimes.cc oted by late military head of state, Sani Abacha.
The Federal Government,
who had recently signed an agreement with Switzerland for the release of $322
million stolen by the former dictator, said it had to cross many hurdles, while
paying a certain p
usanews.cc ercentage at every interval in trying to repatriate the money
home.
Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Geoffrey Onyema, said this while speaking at the second International
conference on combating illicit financial Flows (IFF) and enhancing asset
recovery f
news
or sustainable development in Abuja on Tuesday.
“For developing
countries as ourselves, it’s so much more difficult – the kind of hurdles that
we have to overcome,” he said.
“Large sums of money
have been found in Jersey, for instance, and other countries are laying claim
to it, because in getting to Jersey, it passed through different jurisdictions.
We haven’t been able to get the money back.
“We got some money back
from Switzerland, but my God! When you look at the details, I was shocked and
extremely angry at the process of recovery. Percentages were paid out to all
kinds of institutions.
“To me, this is daylight
robbery that these countries are perpetrating, and of course playing on the
fact that we’re not the United States. So, it’s something we keep harping on,
that these countries have to do a lot more, because at the end of the day, they
are condoning huge theft and are accessories after the fact in fact.”
He added that when a
country is “making it difficult” for legitimate owners to recover looted funds,
“then you’re just as guilty of theft as those that transferred the money in the
first place. This is totally unacceptable and totally immoral.”
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