House of Representatives has resolved to investigate the level of Nigerians’ complicity in the planned payment of $17 million to the lawyers allegedly hired to negotiate the $321 million Abacha loot. The House has therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari to suspend any further action on request for the payment of the $17 million, pending the outcome of its planned investigation
. This was sequel to a motion to investigate the alleged proposed payment by the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, sponsored by Hon. Mark Gbillah, after which members expressed concerns over the allegation and counter allegation on the letter purportedly written by the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, in which she reportedly advised President Buhari to stop payment of the controversial $17 million.
According to Gbillah, “Mr Enrico Monfrini, a Swiss lawyer was engaged by the Nigerian government since 1999 to work on recovering the Abacha loot for which the sum of $321 million was a part and had finished the Luxembourg leg of the job since 2014 when Mohammed Bello Adoke was the Attorney-General of the Federation.
“Mr Mofrini had since been paid by the Federal Government for his legal services for the recovery of the money which was then domiciled with the Attorney-General of Switzerland, pending the signing of an MoU with Nigeria to avoid the issues of accountability around previous recoveries,” adding that all that was left was the signing of the MoU which is a governmentto- government communication, for the money to be repatriated to Nigeria.
He said it was surprising that “Abubakar Malami, the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, had curiously engaged the services of another set of Nigerian lawyers in 2016, namely, Oladipo Okpeseyi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), and Temitope Adebayo for a fee of $16.9 million (about N6 billion), without due process.” Ruling after members voted in favour of the suggested investigation, Speaker Yakubu Dogara who presided over the plenary, expressed concern on whether such money can be unilaterally approved by the Executive and effect the payment without the National Assembly’s approval.
