$320m Abacha Loot: ‘Poorest Nigerians’ not paid in 7 months as FG blames technical issues

The federal government has halted the disbursement of the recovered $320 million Abacha Loot to poor Nigerians over technical issues, TheCable understands. 

Following the repatriation of the funds stolen by Sani Abacha, the late head of state, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had promised to disburse the fund to 302,000 poor households in 19 states in July, 2018.

The president had said the recovered loot will be put into the conditional cash transfers (CCT) scheme targeted at the “poorest of Nigerians”.

This arrangement was agreed when both the federal government of Nigeria and the Switzerland government signed a memorandum of understanding at the maiden edition of the Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR) summit which was held in Washington DC in 2017.

While speaking with TheCable on Friday, Henry Ayede, a spokesperson of the CCT scheme, said the payment is delayed over some “technical issues” which are already being sorted. 

“The disbursement has not been stopped. We paid last in August, 2021, and because of some technical issues, the payment has been delayed,” he said.

“But things have been sorted now, and by next week, we would resume payment. Be also assured that all backlogs would be cleared. It is not true that we have stopped payment. This funds have been approved, and we are going to pay it.”

On Thursday, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) called on the federal government to intervene in the “stoppage of payment”.

David Ugolor, ANEEJ executive director, in a statement, said payment from “the $322.5million has reached 76 percent and from September 2020 to June 2021, no payment was made to the poor beneficiaries ostensibly due to change of leadership at the National Cash Transfer Office and system strengthening process”.

“The last major payment cycle was May/June 2021. Payment and reconciliation of accounts was completed in 24 States (Abia, Adamawa, Cross Rivers, FCT, Bayelsa, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Katsina, Bauchi, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Lagos, Plateau, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Ebonyi, Sokoto, Taraba. Between July 2021 and December 2021, there was clearing of backlog owed beneficiaries in the previous year (2020) in Benue, Nasarawa, Ekiti, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers which were at different payment cycle,” Ugolor said.

Ugolor who is also the convener of civil society organisations (CSOs) monitoring the disbursement of the returned asset, said the monitors established that as of May/June 2021 a total number of 1,632,206 beneficiaries in 33 states excluding Edo, Enugu, Ondo and Kebbi were on the payment schedule. 

He said a total of 812,721 households were paid while total unpaid households stood at 819,485.

He said the total amount paid so far is N8,528,950,000 representing 76 percent of the returned loot while the balance yet to be disbursed is put at 2,329,020,000.

Four states, he said, had issues with their payment service operators (PSPs) since their last payment in December 2019 which has been resolved “but the poor in these states have not received any payment up till date (March 2022)”. 

According to him, these states include; Edo, Enugu, Ondo and Kebbi. 

He added that the Abacha Loot disbursement is projected to achieve optimal disbursement by May/June 2022 payment cycle, but ANEEJ fears that this target will be missed if payments do not continue.