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Abacha: Supreme Court dismisses family’s bid to gain access to ex-dictator’s frozen foreign accounts

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Abacha



The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed an appeal by the family of the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, who had prayed for an order unfreezing some bank accounts of the late dictator and other members of the family held in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Jersey, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.

The accounts were frozen in the countries following mutual judicial assistance agreements entered with the countries by the Nigerian government during the administration of the then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in 1999.

Delivering judgment in the appeal filed by a son of the late dictator, Mohammed Abacha, a five-man panel of the apex court led by Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, unanimously held that the suit which was first initiated before the Federal High Court in Kano in January 2004 had become statute-barred.

In the lead judgment by Justice Chima Nweze, the apex affirmed the concurrent decisions of both the Federal High Court in Kano and the Court of Appeal in Kaduna, which had both dismissed the suit for being statute-barred.

Another member of the apex court’s panel, Justice Amina Augie, read the lead judgment on behalf of Justice Nweze who was absent on Friday.

Justice Nweze said he had “no hesitation in affirming the concurrent decisions of the lower courts.”

Following the mutual judicial assistance newly entered into between Nigeria and Switzerland in 1999, the then President had asked the then Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Kanu Agabi (SAN) to write to the Swiss government to freeze all bank accounts held by Abacha and his family members between 1993 and 1998 in the foreign country.

The government also engaged a foreign financial investigator, Enrico Monfrini of Hauchomann & Bottega in Geneva, Switzerland, to assist in recovering funds looted by the family of the former Head of State.

The government discovered the accounts of in the name of the Abachas in Switzerland, United Kingdom, Jersey, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg and had them frozen.

On January 28, 2004, the late Head of State’s family challenged the freezing of their accounts by filing the suit, FHC/KN/CS/6/2004, at the Federal High Court, Kano.

In 2006, the court dismissed the suit on the grounds that it was statute-barred.

Mohammed Abacha further appealed to the Kaduna Division of the Court of Appeal, which also in its judgment delivered on December 15, 2009, dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the suit was statute barred as held by the Federal High Court.

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