Switzerland says it has returned all the money kept in the country by late Nigeria Head of State Gen. Sani Abacha, with 1.5 million dollars interest. Ambassador Pio Wennubst, Assistant Director-General and Head, Global Cooperation Department, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, told reporters in New York on Monday. Wennubst said Switzerland returned about 322.5 million dollars (N116.11 billion) to the Nigerian government.
He also said that the original amount was 321 million dollars. The government had announced receipt of 322.51 million from the Swiss government as part of the looted funds recovered from the late former Head of State. Confirming this, Wennubst said: “We returned 321 million dollars including the interests.
“We return all the amount, 322.5 million dollars including the interest for the time that the funds were blocked.’’ The Swiss envoy also said that the money was returned to Nigeria unconditionally. “After discussing, the only condition, set by the judiciary, not by us, was that the return of this asset should have been monitored by the World Bank and this is where we worked on.’’
According to him, these funds were part of the Nigerian government contributions to the social safety net programme, “plus concessional loans from the Bank”. The ‘Abacha loot’ was frozen in 2014 by a Swiss court after a legal procedure against his son, Abba Abacha.
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