Nigeria recovers Abacha loot
2003-11-27 15:00
Lagos - Nigeria has recovered $149m in funds looted by late military dictator Sani Abacha and stashed in the British Channel Islands, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.
Okonjo-Iweala told reporters late on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja that the money was received last week after negotiations between President Olusegun Obasanjo and the authorities in Jersey, a British island off the coast of France.
Okonjo-Iweala was in Switzerland last week to negotiate the release of $618m banked there by Abacha, who ruled Nigeria from 1993 until his sudden death in 1998.
"The $149m is additional and that is why I want to say this is a very good effort that the president had made," she said.
- AFP