Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, has asked the National Assembly to approve a commission of 2.5 per cent of recovered loots to be paid to the Asset Recovery Unit in his office.
The money will be used to “service bills”, the minister said Wednesday when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters for the defence of his ministry’s budget for 2020.
He said, “We are progressively making vital recoveries of our looted funds stashed abroad. However, let me affirm that the legal procedural requirements for these recoveries are all-together tasking and cumbersome.“Most times, we have to engage the services of well-grounded lawyers and consultants to effect recovery. To smoothen our operations in this regard, it was deemed expedient to establish Asset Recovery Unit in my office and so far, the effort is quite sultry.
“I will like to reiterate my request to the effect that about 2.5 per cent of the recovered looted money to be earmarked to the Asset Recovery Unit to service logistics, operational cost, payment to private lawyers and consultants.”
Mr Malami has been accused of authorising the payment of $15 million to lawyers for purportedly helping to facilitate the recovery of the Abacha loot. The payment became controversial because the lawyers reportedly did little to deserve that amount since the bulk of the work had already been done by Swiss lawyers.
However, the lawmakers were favourably disposed to Mr Malami’s request for a 2.5 per cent commission, and told him to send it to the National Assembly in the form of a bill to avoid being misinterpreted as “padding”, especially when the money was not contained in the budget for 2020.
One of the lawmakers, Chukwuka Utazi, supported the request when he argued that such appropriation will greatly facilitate the recovery of more looted funds.The lawmaker praised Mr Malami’s loyalty and consistent fight or Nigeria since 2015.
