OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abuja | Tuesday 3.30pm.
TWO former ministers and a relative of Nigeria’s late military ruler Sani Abacha have returned to the government looted funds totalling $64-million, a government official said late on Monday.
The money was looted from the treasury during General Abacha’s four-and-half-year regime.
Mohammed Haruna, the chief press secretary to military ruler General Abdulsalami Abubakar, said on Monday that former finance minister Anthony Ani, his power and steel counterpart Bashir Dalhatu and the unnamed Abacha relative have voluntarily refunded the money to the Nigerian government.
He said they have returned $58-million dollars and other monies despite earlier denials they ever stole any public funds. “They have been interrogated by security agents and accepted involvement in the scandal,” Haruna said.
In November, Haruna told journalists that the former ministers and an unnamed Abacha family member were implicated in a debt buy-back scam totalling $2,5-billion dollars.
The scam is said to be linked to a failed steel project being handled by a Russian firm.
Since coming to power in June 1998 after the death of Abacha, Abubakar has ordered investigations into activities of Abacha, his family and cronies. — AFP