The Buhari administration’s plan to hand over $100m of the recovered Gen Sani Abacha’s loot to an All Progressives Congress member and Governor of Kebbi State, Abubakar Bagudu, has reportedly been exposed and opposed by the United States’ government.
Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Department of Justice stated that Bagudu, who spent six months in federal detention in Texas while awaiting extradition to the Island of Jersey, was involved in corruption with Abacha. However, Buhari’s administration insists on a 17-year-old agreement entitling Bagudu to the recovered funds.
Documents made available by the US Department of Justice revealed that the Kebbi State Governor, a close ally of President Buhari, was handed over to criminal trial in Jersey before he agreed to return $163m to Nigeria. He was subsequently released on bond to Nigeria, where he was supposed to be prosecuted for money laundering, but that trial never took place.
In a case involving Bagudu, the U.S. initiated a forfeiture action against various assets, including four investment portfolios held in London in trust for him and his family, according to the district court filings.
In court documents filed before the district court of Columbia, it was noted that the Nigerian government has an agreement that stops it from assisting the US in investigating Bagudu. The US Department of Justice also stated that the Nigerian government is preventing the US from seizing Bagudu’s alleged loot.
Bagudu, who has been cleared to contest in three different election cycles, was elected as a senator in 2009 and later became Kebbi’s governor. He is now the chairman of an influential body of governors representing the ruling All Progressives Congress.
It was reported that he successfully sued the Nigerian government for violating the 2003 agreement of investigating him and dropping all outstanding civil and criminal claims against him. In 2018, the Kebbi Governor reached a new agreement with the Buhari-led administration.
The new agreement would lead to the transfer of ownership of the investment portfolios, worth 141m euros ($155m) to the Nigerian state, which would then pay 98.5 million euros to Bagudu and his affiliates. The funds are currently restrained by the UK at the request of the US.
The disagreement may hamper future cooperation between Nigeria and the US to recover state money moved offshore by Abacha, who Transparency International estimates may have looted as much as $5bn during his 1993-98 rule.