Malami Blasts EFCC: $490 Million Abacha Loot Allegations Are Baseless

Former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has dismissed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)’s claims regarding the movement of $490 million in Abacha loot as baseless, illogical, and entirely unfounded.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶

The EFCC had on Saturday seized Malami’s international passport amid ongoing investigations into recovered Abacha funds.

In a statement issued on Sunday through his media aide, Mohammed Doka, Malami insisted that the allegations collapse under even basic factual scrutiny. He stressed that no recovery of the funds had been completed before he assumed office in 2015, emphasizing that recovered money is only considered complete once lodged into the Federation Account.

Malami noted that Swiss lawyer Enrico Monfrini applied in December 2016 to be re-engaged for verification of the recovery, demanding a $5 million upfront deposit and a success fee of 40 percent, later reduced to 20 percent—a proposal rejected by the former Buhari administration.

He said, “The EFCC alleges that I duplicated a recovery supposedly completed by Monfrini prior to my tenure. This claim collapses immediately under factual and logical examination.

“As of 2016, no funds had been lodged into the Federation Account. Therefore, there was no completed recovery to duplicate. It is entirely illogical for a lawyer to seek engagement in December 2016 for funds he claimed to have recovered two years earlier. This alone exposes the contradictions in the EFCC’s narrative.”

Malami further explained that a Nigerian law firm was engaged on a 5 percent success-fee arrangement, saving the nation between 15 and 35 percent of the recovered funds, estimated at ₦76.8 billion to ₦179.2 billion.

He clarified that he oversaw multiple, separate tranches of the Abacha loot, highlighting:

• $322.5 million from Switzerland (2017–2018), deployed to Conditional Cash Transfers under World Bank-monitored transparency mechanisms.

• About $321 million from Jersey (2020), allocated for major infrastructure projects, including the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Abuja-Kano Road, and Second Niger Bridge.

Malami stressed that conflating these distinct recoveries or labeling the lawful, cost-saving process as duplication is misleading. He reaffirmed that the constitutional powers of the Attorney-General in asset recovery were exercised transparently and strictly in the public interest.

“Any suggestion of abuse of office or money laundering is entirely without basis,” he said, describing the EFCC’s probe as a politically motivated witch-hunt.

Malami concluded: “The allegations remain baseless, illogical, and devoid of substance. I am confident that truth, law, and reason will ultimately prevail, vindicating the integrity of the office I hold.”