How Malami Frustrated My Efforts To Recover $60b Stolen Funds For Nigeria – Obono-Obla 

Okoi Obono-Obla, a lawyer and former Chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel on Recovery of Public Property (SPIP), has revealed that immediate past Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami (SAN) frustrated his efforts to recover $60b stolen funds for the federal government.

Speaking in an interview with The Nation, Obono-Obla also said that  despite many official statements about fighting corruption, many officials in the Muhammadu Buhari administration did not fully subscribe to such idea.Obono-Obla also said he has many impediments on his way in recovering corrupt proceeds but he was frustrated by Malami while Buhari did not give him the necessary support needed to carry out his task.

In his words, the chieftain of the rulingAll Progressives Congress (APC) said “It was mere lip service. In the first place, the Attorney-General was never interested. The Attorney-General who was supposed to be the Commander in Chief in the fight against corruption was half-hearted and ambivalent. So, how can you really fight corruption?”

“There is Forensic Assets Investigation and Recovery Services LLC (FAIR), a United States company that is an international recovery agency. They wrote to me as chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel on Recovery of Public Property (SPIP) panel that they have authentic information and documentary evidence of $60 billion which are proceeds of stolen crude oil deposited in a Texas bank in the United States”.

“They also said that they have documentary evidence, including account numbers, of the sum of $10 billion also stashed in a Texas bank by a former National Security Adviser in a previous administration”.

“Because of the magnitude of these, I had to write to President Buhari about the information that has been placed at my disposal and I asked that he authorize me to work with these people for recovery of these monies. The letter was sent to the presidential villa and acknowledged as being officially received. I also made a copy to the Attorney-General and no action was taken!

“When I had issues with the Attorney-General, my wife decided to go and see him. But sarcastically, he said that I claimed that within three to five months, I can recover this $60 million. Yes, if they give us the mandate, we can recover the $60 billion for Nigeria within three to six months. But how can I recover it when they will not allow us do so?”.

” So, you can see the intrigues that some people were not happy with my little efforts and they had to frame me up and suspend me from office based on phantom allegations”.