FG to receive looted £300m from European tax haven

Federal Government is on the verge to receiving £300 million stolen from Nigeria and hidden in Jersey, Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs, said on Tuesday.

Onyeama stated this in Abuja at a press briefing to mark one-year anniversary of President Mohammadu Buhari’s tenure in office.

Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands, located between England and France, and is an independent, English-speaking territory with a mix of British and French cultures, with a population of around 99,500 people.

The minister said the fund in Jersey was set to be repatriated, but a last minute objection was raised by those who were supposed to forfeit it, an issue the minister said had to be sorted out.

“We are just in the process of repatriating the funds, but sometimes very often what happens is that the people who have ownership or who claim to have ownership, they might bring up a defence,” Onyeama said.

According to him, “it is no longer contestant and then at the last minute, an objection was raised by the people who were supposed to forfeit those funds,” stating further, “the authorities in Jersey obliged us to go ahead and repatriate through certain legal procedures, because the other party would have a lawyer and there were legal issues.”

The minister who said the issue was being addresses noted with concern that the process has to be painstaking and slow.

He also said that the process of repatriation of looted funds stacked in other countries like Switzerland and the United States was in progress.

While expressing concern over the frustration that sets in the process of repatriation of stolen funds, the minister lamented that such acts make it difficult to easily get the money back

“That is why the anti-corruption Summit and the initiative of Mr President is really focusing on these Western countries to remove the barriers, some of those lengthy procedure that exist that make it possible for some of these people to delay returning stolen and hidden money in their countries,” Onyeama assured.