General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN, yesterday, withdrew the money laundering charge preferred against the eldest son of the late military dictator, Mohammed Abacha.
Mohammed was accused of concealing the sum of N446.3 billion allegedly stolen from the national treasury between 1995 and 1998.
He was said to have received the stolen money from his late father, General Sani Abacha, and hid same. On two different occasions, Mohammed failed to appear before the court to enter his plea to the charge.
The accused person, on April 10, told the court that he could not take his plea because he was not duly served with a copy of the charge and proof of evidence against him, a situation that led to the adjournment of the matter.
On April 29 when the case came up for arraignment, Mohammed also failed to appear before the court on the ground of ill-health, though his lawyer begged the court to adjourn the case for two weeks to enable him attend his trial.
At the resumed sitting yesterday, the prosecutor, Mr. D.C Enwelum, told the court that the AGF directed him to withdraw the charge.
"I have been instructed by the Attorney General of the Federation to withdraw the charges as currently filed before this court.
"My Lord, he said there are fresh facts/documents available to him that would necessitate the termination of this proceeding.
"In the circumstance, he instructed me to file a notice of withdrawal without prejudice to future cause of action that may be taken by his office. I humbly apply to withdraw the charges accordingly," Enwelum added.
He, therefore, urged the court to okay the notice of withdrawal,dated June 17.
Sequel to a 'no objection' stance by Mohammed's lawyer, Mr. Abdullahi Haruna who further prayed the court to discharge his client, Justice Valentine Ashi, struck out the charge.
Specifically, government had alleged that Mohammed "dishonestly received stolen property and voluntarily assisted in concealing money."
The federal government had maintained that the charge which was withdrawn yesterday, replaced an earlier 121 criminal counts, in which Mohammed was sued alongside his alleged accomplice, Atiku Bagudu.
Besides, the government had in the subsequent charge, excluded Bagudu from trial with an indication that he was among those billed to testify against Mohammed.
According to the withdrawn charge marked CR 21-24/2008, the stolen money allegedly received by Mohammed, included 141,100,000 pound sterling and 384,353,000 US dollars, made up of cash and travellers cheques.
In count one, Mohammed was alleged to have between August and December 1995 at Abuja, dishonestly received $36,480,000.00 made up of cash and travellers cheques property of the Federal Government, believed to have been stolen.
Count two alleged that Mohammed, between August and December 1995 at Abuja, voluntarily assisted in concealing $57,960,000.00 believed to have been stolen from the Federal Government.
Moreso, Mohammed was in count three alleged to have between October and December 1996 at Abuja, dishonestly received $26,913,500.00 believed to have been stolen from the Federal Government.
The prosecution alleged in count four that Mohammed, within the same time, voluntarily assisted in concealing $26,913,500.00 allegedly stolen from the Federal Government.
In count five, he was alleged to have sometime in June 1997 in Abuja dishonestly received $10,000,000.00 believed to have been stolen from the Federal Government. He was, in count six, said to have, between February and December 1997 dishonestly received $87,000,000 and 41,143,000 pound sterling believed to have been stolen from the Federal government.
The federal government also accused him of dishonestly receiving, between January and August 1998, $167,000,000 and 99,957,000 pound sterling.
This Day
Related stories: Liechtenstein returning loot from dead Nigerian President Sani Abacha worth €167m
Abacha's sons sue government over trial abroad
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Liechtenstein returning loot from dead Nigerian President Sani Abacha worth €167m
Nigeria first requested Liechtenstein’s assistance in recovering the assets in 2000, two years after Abacha’s sudden death at the age of 54 paved the way for the return of civilian rule.
But the recovery effort has been hampered by lawsuits taken out by companies linked to the Abacha family – as it has in other legal jurisdictions.
Liechtenstein’s constitutional court dismissed a final appeal over the return of the funds in March 2013, but the principality still refused to release the money, infuriating Nigerian officials.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s minister of economy and finance, late last year accused Liechtenstein of “aiding and abetting corruption” by refusing to accept Nigeria’s guarantees that it would pay compensation if any liabilities resulted from a last-ditch effort by Abacha-linked companies to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Officials in the principality feared they could be open to compensation claims from the Abacha-linked companies if it was shown they had not had a fair hearing.
But on Tuesday a statement by the principality said: “In May 2014, the complaint pending in Strasbourg was withdrawn by the four Abacha companies, clearing the path for repatriation of the assets once and for all.”
Abacha was the penultimate and most brutal of Nigeria’s military rulers. He and what Switzerland’s Supreme Court dubbed the “Abacha family criminal enterprise” amassed a fortune estimated at $3bn-$5bn from misappropriation of public funds during his 1993-1998 rule.
In a bizarre twist on Tuesday, the Nigerian government dropped embezzlement charges against Mohamed Abacha, the late dictator’s eldest son saying there had been new developments in the case.
Mohamed Abacha was accused of receiving N100bn ($600m) of the late dictator’s money, and has fought off various attempts to charge him over the years.
Enrico Monfrini, a Swiss lawyer working with the Nigerian government, has traced $2.4bn of assets linked to Abacha, most of which were channelled through European banks.
Criminal investigations and subsequent forfeiture proceedings established that the Lichtenstein funds originated from bribes paid by Germany’s Ferrostaal AG to companies whose ultimate beneficiary was Abacha. They related to a grossly inflated contract for the construction of an aluminium smelter.
So far, Nigeria has recovered $1.3bn, the largest tranche of which – $500m – came from Switzerland in 2005. A further $1.1bn – in France, the UK, Luxembourg and the Channel island of Jersey – is still tied up in legal proceedings. The US in March froze more than $458m linked to Abacha in Jersey and France.
Nigeria has engaged the World Bank’s Stolen Asset Recovery unit (Star), which was set up by Mrs Okonjo Iweala when she was at the bank, to ensure that the funds recovered from Liechtenstein are used properly – as it has done with other recovered assets.
While the Abacha funds are being recovered belatedly, fresh allegations of grand scale corruption have emerged in Nigeria this year.
The government of President Goodluck Jonathan has hired PwC to carry out a forensic audit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in response to allegations by Lamido Sanusi, the former central bank governor, that the state oil company failed to remit as much as $20bn in revenues due to the treasury between 2012 and 2013.
Financial Times
Related story: Switzerland returns Sani Abacha's loot
Bomb blast at World Cup screening in Northern Nigeria - 21 confirmed dead
At least 21 people have been killed in a bomb blast in northern Nigeria as they were watching a World Cup match, a hospital source has told the BBC.
Witnesses in Damaturu, in Yobe state, say a suicide bomber in a tricycle taxi detonated explosives as people watched Brazil's match against Mexico on TV.
At least 27 people are said to have been seriously injured.
Public screenings of the World Cup in some parts of Nigeria have been banned because of threats by Boko Haram.
Three states, including Yobe, are under a government-imposed state of emergency following years of attacks.
No group has said it was behind the latest blast.
The local police chief has told the BBC that the attack happened outside a shop with a television, where people had gathered to watch the game.
He said it was not a viewing centre where Nigerians often watch football matches, as these have been banned in the state.
Other sources say it was a viewing centre which was attacked.
While the police say 13 people died, the hospital worker told the BBC he had personally counted 21 bodies.
Correspondents say Nigeria's authorities often downplay the number of casualties.
In another development, the authorities say a senior Boko Haram militant was among almost 500 northerners arrested as they travelled to Nigeria's oil hub of Port Harcourt earlier this week.
The authorities did not name the suspect. Relatives of those arrested say they had no links to Boko Haram and had gone to southern Nigeria for economic reasons.
The Damaturu hospital worker said truckloads of injured people were being treated in overcrowded wards after the explosion on Tuesday evening.
"The military and police trucks that brought them in have made four return trips so far ferrying them in," the worker said.
"Every single truck was full of the injured. And all of them are young men or children."
The worker said that the injuries suffered by people caught up in the blast were "horrific".
Damaturu resident Mohammed Kurkure Yobe told the BBC that the venue where the attack took place was very popular and often crowded with people watching big events.
'Football un-Islamic'
Open-air viewing centres - where people pay to watch live football - are popular throughout Nigeria. Boko Haram has described football as un-Islamic.
On 1 June at least 14 people were killed in a bomb attack on a bar in Adamawa that was screening a televised football match. No group claimed responsibility for the blast.
In March, many people were also killed in explosions while watching football in a video hall in Borno's Maiduguri town. On both occasions, Boko Haram was blamed for the blasts.
Boko Haram - which means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language - wants to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state.
The group captured international attention in April after it abducted more than 200 girls in Chibok in Borno state.
The states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa have been under a state of emergency since May 2013. Thousands have died in the north-east since Boko Haram launched an insurgency in 2009.
BBC
Related stories: Boko Haram disguised as military execute christians in church
Northern Nigeria police warn football fans - World Cup screening venues possible targets for Boko Haram
Witnesses in Damaturu, in Yobe state, say a suicide bomber in a tricycle taxi detonated explosives as people watched Brazil's match against Mexico on TV.
At least 27 people are said to have been seriously injured.
Public screenings of the World Cup in some parts of Nigeria have been banned because of threats by Boko Haram.
Three states, including Yobe, are under a government-imposed state of emergency following years of attacks.
No group has said it was behind the latest blast.
The local police chief has told the BBC that the attack happened outside a shop with a television, where people had gathered to watch the game.
He said it was not a viewing centre where Nigerians often watch football matches, as these have been banned in the state.
Other sources say it was a viewing centre which was attacked.
While the police say 13 people died, the hospital worker told the BBC he had personally counted 21 bodies.
Correspondents say Nigeria's authorities often downplay the number of casualties.
In another development, the authorities say a senior Boko Haram militant was among almost 500 northerners arrested as they travelled to Nigeria's oil hub of Port Harcourt earlier this week.
The authorities did not name the suspect. Relatives of those arrested say they had no links to Boko Haram and had gone to southern Nigeria for economic reasons.
The Damaturu hospital worker said truckloads of injured people were being treated in overcrowded wards after the explosion on Tuesday evening.
"The military and police trucks that brought them in have made four return trips so far ferrying them in," the worker said.
"Every single truck was full of the injured. And all of them are young men or children."
The worker said that the injuries suffered by people caught up in the blast were "horrific".
Damaturu resident Mohammed Kurkure Yobe told the BBC that the venue where the attack took place was very popular and often crowded with people watching big events.
'Football un-Islamic'
Open-air viewing centres - where people pay to watch live football - are popular throughout Nigeria. Boko Haram has described football as un-Islamic.
On 1 June at least 14 people were killed in a bomb attack on a bar in Adamawa that was screening a televised football match. No group claimed responsibility for the blast.
In March, many people were also killed in explosions while watching football in a video hall in Borno's Maiduguri town. On both occasions, Boko Haram was blamed for the blasts.
Boko Haram - which means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language - wants to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state.
The group captured international attention in April after it abducted more than 200 girls in Chibok in Borno state.
The states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa have been under a state of emergency since May 2013. Thousands have died in the north-east since Boko Haram launched an insurgency in 2009.
BBC
Related stories: Boko Haram disguised as military execute christians in church
Northern Nigeria police warn football fans - World Cup screening venues possible targets for Boko Haram
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
PayPal coming to Nigeria
Rupert Keeley, the executive in charge of the EMEA region of PayPal, the payments unit of eBay Inc, said in an interview on Monday the expansion would bring the number of countries it serves to 203.
Starting on Tuesday, consumers in Nigeria, which has 60 million users and has Africa's largest population, along with nine other markets in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America will be able to make payments through PayPal.
"PayPal has been going through a period of reinvention, refreshing many of its services to make them easier to use on mobile (phones), allowing us to expand into fast-developing markets," Keeley said.
Once the services go live, customers in the 10 countries with access to the Web and a bank card authorized for Internet transactions will be able to register for a PayPal account and make payments to millions of sites worldwide.
Initially, PayPal is only offering "send money" services for consumers to pay for goods and services at PayPal-enabled merchant sites while safeguarding their financial details. This is free to consumers and covered by fees it charges merchants.
"We think we can give our sellers selling into this market a great deal of reassurance," said Keeley, a former regional banking executive with Standard Chartered Plc and senior executive with payment card company Visa Inc.
PayPal does not yet cover peer-to-peer transactions, which allow consumers to send money to other consumers. It has not yet enabled local merchants in the new markets to receive payments, nor is it offering other forms of banking services, he said.
A 2013 survey of 200 UK ecommerce sites by Visa's CyberSource unit estimated that 1.26 percent of online orders are fraudulent and that 85 percent of merchants expected fraud to increase or remain static last year.
CyberSource also estimated that suspicion of fraudulent transactions result in 8.2 percent of online orders in Latin America being rejected by merchants, compared with 5.5 percent in Europe and 2.7 percent in the United States and Canada.
Such fraud can include ID theft, social engineering, phishing and automated harvesting of customer financial data via botnets, or networks of computers controlled by hackers.
A total of 80 million Internet users stand to gain access to PayPal global services this week, including those in five European markets - Belarus, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco and Montenegro, four in the African nations of Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Zimbabwe, as well as Paraguay. Internet usage figures are based on research by Euromonitor International.
PayPal counts 148 million active accounts worldwide.
Last week, MasterCard Inc, the world's second-largest debit and credit card company, and a PayPal rival in payment processing, said it was working with the Nigerian government on a pilot to overlay payment technology on a new national identity card.
PayPal has operated in 190 markets since 2007 and added three countries - Egypt, Georgia and Serbia last year. Roughly a quarter of the $52 billion in payment volumes PayPal reported in the first quarter of 2014 were for cross-border transactions. PayPal reported $1.8 billion in revenue during the period.
Reuters
Related stories: Western Union launches online service in Nigeria
Bitcoin interest grows in Nigeria
Monday, June 16, 2014
Nigeria draw with Iran 0-0 in FIFA World Cup 2014
Nigeria and Iran delivered the first draw of the World Cup on Monday as they ground out a scrappy 0-0 stalemate in their opening match in Group F.
The draw at the Arena da Baixada in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba followed 12 mostly high scoring and attacking games.
After a first half in which Nigeria failed to capitalize on its dominance, chances were few and far between in the second.
In the early passages of play, Nigeria had shown menace, with much of its attacking thrust coming down the left with Emmanuel Emenike and Victor Moses combining to cause problems for the defensively-minded Iran side.
Nigeria came closest to scoring in the seventh minute when an Ahmed Musa goal was disallowed after John Obi Mikel was adjudged to have fouled Iran goalkeeper Alireza Haghighi at a corner.
Iran grew more confident as the game progressed and came close to scoring in the 34th when a Reza Ghoochannejhad header required a sharp save from Nigeria goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama.
In the second half, both sides were guilty of sloppy passages of play, to the growing annoyance of the mainly Brazilian crowd. Players from both sides snatched at chances, and neither goalkeeper was troubled despite some frantic late pressure in the final minutes.
''They had 11 people behind the ball, which made it hard for us to create chances,'' Mikel said. ''It's frustrating because they sat back.''
Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi said his team became anxious when it failed to score during a dominant opening 25 minutes.
But he added: ''Respect to Iran, they had their game plan to sit back and defend and they did well.''
Keshi, who played for Nigeria at the 1994 World Cup, is already anticipating a backlash after the draw.
''Win or lose I'm criticized,'' said Keshi, whose side won last year's Africa Cup of Nations. ''A draw now, I'll be criticized. It's part of the game. In my country, it's win at all costs and sometimes it doesn't go that way.''
The best chance either side has to progress in the tournament is to beat debutant Bosnia-Herzegovina, as Argentina is the firm favorite to top the group. Lionel Messi scored one of the tournament's best goals in Argentina's 2-1 victory over the Bosnians on Sunday.
Iran coach Carlos Queiroz said the result was ''fair'' and that his players deserved ''sympathy and respect'' for performing on the biggest stage despite the impact of economic sanctions on the country - which made it difficult to arrange friendlies.
''We're not here to perform the role of the happy loser,'' Queiroz said. ''The fans need to know the conditions we have endured for three years to get here.''
Queiroz wouldn't talk about the team's next game against Argentina.
''Now I'm so tired just let me enjoy this point we collected from Nigeria,'' he said.
The draw means the winless World Cup runs of both teams continues, dating back to France 1998. For Iran, though, this was the first time it had not conceded a goal at the World Cup finals.
AP
Related story: Nigeria Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi says Africa can with the World Cup
The draw at the Arena da Baixada in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba followed 12 mostly high scoring and attacking games.
After a first half in which Nigeria failed to capitalize on its dominance, chances were few and far between in the second.
In the early passages of play, Nigeria had shown menace, with much of its attacking thrust coming down the left with Emmanuel Emenike and Victor Moses combining to cause problems for the defensively-minded Iran side.
Nigeria came closest to scoring in the seventh minute when an Ahmed Musa goal was disallowed after John Obi Mikel was adjudged to have fouled Iran goalkeeper Alireza Haghighi at a corner.
Iran grew more confident as the game progressed and came close to scoring in the 34th when a Reza Ghoochannejhad header required a sharp save from Nigeria goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama.
In the second half, both sides were guilty of sloppy passages of play, to the growing annoyance of the mainly Brazilian crowd. Players from both sides snatched at chances, and neither goalkeeper was troubled despite some frantic late pressure in the final minutes.
''They had 11 people behind the ball, which made it hard for us to create chances,'' Mikel said. ''It's frustrating because they sat back.''
Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi said his team became anxious when it failed to score during a dominant opening 25 minutes.
But he added: ''Respect to Iran, they had their game plan to sit back and defend and they did well.''
Keshi, who played for Nigeria at the 1994 World Cup, is already anticipating a backlash after the draw.
''Win or lose I'm criticized,'' said Keshi, whose side won last year's Africa Cup of Nations. ''A draw now, I'll be criticized. It's part of the game. In my country, it's win at all costs and sometimes it doesn't go that way.''
The best chance either side has to progress in the tournament is to beat debutant Bosnia-Herzegovina, as Argentina is the firm favorite to top the group. Lionel Messi scored one of the tournament's best goals in Argentina's 2-1 victory over the Bosnians on Sunday.
Iran coach Carlos Queiroz said the result was ''fair'' and that his players deserved ''sympathy and respect'' for performing on the biggest stage despite the impact of economic sanctions on the country - which made it difficult to arrange friendlies.
''We're not here to perform the role of the happy loser,'' Queiroz said. ''The fans need to know the conditions we have endured for three years to get here.''
Queiroz wouldn't talk about the team's next game against Argentina.
''Now I'm so tired just let me enjoy this point we collected from Nigeria,'' he said.
The draw means the winless World Cup runs of both teams continues, dating back to France 1998. For Iran, though, this was the first time it had not conceded a goal at the World Cup finals.
AP
Related story: Nigeria Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi says Africa can with the World Cup
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