World Bank Says Abacha Loot Spent on Infrastructure, Utilities, Others

A Lagos-based human rights group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), on Sunday made public that it has received over 700 pages on information that touches on the spending of recovered assets allegedly stolen by late Nigerian military dictator, General Sani Abacha when he held sway as the country’s Head of State.According to SERAP, the information given by the World Bank suggested that the recovered stolen assets were expended on roads, electricity, education, health and water.SERAP, in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, noted that, “SERAP can confirm that last week we received several documents from Ann May of the Access to Information Team of the World Bank following our Access to Information Request to the Bank. We also received a letter dated 24 November 2015 from Mr Rachid Benmessaoud, Director of the World Bank in Africa.“In total, SERAP has received over 700 pages of documents, which we are now closely studying and scrutinising with a view to discovering whether the documents contain details that Nigerians would like to see and whether the information corresponds to the facts on the ground. After this analysis, we will respond to the Bank and consider our options, including filing an appeal before the Bank’s Access to Information Appeals Board and taking other appropriate legal actions nationally and internationally to discover what exactly happened to Abacha recovered loot.“In the meantime our preliminary review of some of the documents and the letter from Mr Rachid Benmessaoud has revealed certain facts which raise more questions about what exactly happened to Abacha loot: First, that Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Minister of Finance in a letter dated 9 January 2005 explained to the Bank that around $500m (N65bn) of Abacha loot received from Switzerland was programmed into and spent in the 2004 and 2005 budgets on roads, electricity, education, water and health across all 6 geo-political zones of Nigeria.“Second, Mrs Iweala explained to the Bank that N18.60bn was spent on roads; N10.83bn spent on health; N7bn spent on education; N6.20bn spent on water; and N21.70bn spent on electricity. She also said that part of the funds was spent on new and ongoing investment projects. Mrs Iweala said that relevant federal ministries have the full details on the spending of repatriated Abacha loot. The Bank noted that there was no funds monitoring and tracking mechanism in place to trace the spending of Abacha loot.“Third, Mr Rachid Benmessaoud confirmed that the World Bank played a monitoring role in a return of assets by Switzerland but that the Bank is not currently involved in the monitoring of spending of Abacha repatriated assests that have been returned to Nigeria in recent years. He said that the Bank would be prepared to set up a mechanism to monitor the use of Abacha loot if the Nigerian government request the Bank’s assistance in this respect.”