By: Ojay Matthew
Former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), has dismissed allegations of abuse of office and money laundering linked to the recovery of the $322.5 million Abacha loot, describing them as “baseless, illogical and devoid of substance.”
In a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Media, Mohammed Bello Doka, Malami confirmed that he was invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on November 28, 2025, over what the agency termed “duplication” in the recovery process of the funds.
According to him, the EFCC alleged that a Swiss lawyer, Enrico Monfrini, had already completed the recovery before he assumed office in 2015, and that his subsequent involvement amounted to duplicating the process to introduce new lawyers who would allegedly return kickbacks.
Malami, however, argued that the claim collapses under factual scrutiny. He maintained that no part of the $310 million—later $322.5 million with accrued interest—had been lodged into Nigeria’s Federation Account as of 2016, meaning no recovery had been completed before the Buhari administration initiated the process.
He further noted that Monfrini himself applied in December 2016 to be engaged for the recovery, demanding a $5 million upfront deposit and a 40 percent success fee, later reduced to 20 percent. These terms, he said, contradicted the EFCC’s claim and were rejected in line with Buhari-era policies banning advance payments and limiting success fees to a maximum of 5 percent.
Malami explained that a Nigerian law firm was later engaged on a transparent 5 percent success-fee arrangement, saving the country between 15 and 35 percent—amounting to between ₦76.8 billion and ₦179.2 billion at an average exchange rate of ₦1,600 to the dollar—when compared with Monfrini’s proposal.
He stressed that the recovery process he supervised was lawful, cost-effective and fully aligned with the constitutional mandate of the Attorney General to act in the public interest.
Malami also clarified that the Abacha loot came in distinct tranches:
The $322.5 million repatriated from Switzerland in 2017–2018, which was deployed through the National Social Investment Programme for Conditional Cash Transfers to vulnerable Nigerians under World Bank and civil society monitoring.
Another $321 million recovered from Jersey in 2020, allocated to major infrastructure projects, including the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway, Abuja–Kano Road and the Second Niger Bridge.
He said attempts to conflate both recoveries or frame the lawful process as duplication were misleading.
Expressing gratitude to his supporters, Malami insisted that he remains confident that “truth, law and reason will ultimately prevail” in what he described as politically motivated allegations.
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