Why we are sharing Abacha’s loot to the poor – Nigerian Government

The Presidency has explained that the decision to share the $322million recovered Abacha’s loot to the poorest of the poor Nigerians was due to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Swiss government and the network of Civil Societies (CSOs).

The Special Assistance (SA) to President on Judicial Reform, Mrs. Juliet Ibekaku Nwagwu disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday.

She also said that a Swiss Court had ordered the commencement of repatriation of Abacha loot on the condition that the World Bank would supervise utilization to prevent mismanagement and re-looting.

She was speaking at the Inception Meeting of the Monitoring Recovered Asset through Transparency and Accountability (MANTRA) Project organized by Africa Network of Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) and the UKAID.

According to her, the Conditional Cash Transfer of the fund to the poor would also enable the mandatory involvement of the World Bank in the process, such that the money would be used in a subsisting programme of the Bank in Nigeria so as to enable it to use its existing monitoring and broader institutional resources to monitor the use of the funds.