Day: May 7, 2022

Britain said that it has recovered $23 million stolen from Nigeria by the country’s late military leader Sani Abacha. The recovery was done by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

According to the NCA, the money recovered in Britain forms part of a larger pool of funds the DOJ has identified as having been misappropriated by Abacha and his associates.

“The NCA is committed to ensuring that the UK is not a safe haven for criminals to launder their proceeds of crime, and the civil recovery of assets is a powerful weapon in this fight,” Billy Beattie, Asset Denial Senior Manager at the NCA, said.

“We work closely with UK and international partners to tackle the threat posed by corruption, which disproportionately impacts the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. We are committed to ensuring that those who perpetuate corruption do not benefit from their actions.”

The recovered funds come seven years after litigation and international negotiations pursued by the NCA at the request of the DOJ. The funds will be transferred to the DOJ.

This is the latest in a series of other funds stolen by Abacha and his family, repatriated from Europe and the U.S., which the media now describes as the Abacha loot.

According to Nigeria’s The Cable, over $3.624 billion of the Abacha loot was recovered between 1998 and 2020.

In 2020, the United States Embassy in Nigeria disclosed that it had discovered $319m of cash looted by Abacha in France and the United Kingdom.

Similarly, in 2019, the government of Jersey, a self-governing dependency of the United Kingdom in the Channel Islands between England and France, seized an amount of £211 million ($267m) that belonged to the former Nigerian military dictator who died in 1998.

Abacha, who presided over a repressive government between 1993 and 1998, stole more than $1 billion from oil-rich Nigeria.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Morocco and Spain on Friday committed to strengthening cooperation on irregular migration, a joint statement said, following a reset in relations after a months-long rift.

“Faced with the shared challenges leading from the action of migrant trafficking networks and the unstable regional environment, the two parties decided to strengthen their coordination and information exchange mechanisms,” a joint statement said.

The decision came during a meeting in Rabat of a mixed permanent group on migration — a key issue for Spain.

Morocco plays a major role in controlling flows of would-be migrants towards Europe. Observers say Rabat has used the issue to put pressure on Madrid.

The two countries have revived relations since Madrid announced a U-turn in March on its stance over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that Morocco sees as an integral part of the kingdom.

The migration cooperation will involve new approaches between police, liaison officers and mixed patrols, the statement said, adding that the return of migrants is “an essential means of deterrence”.

The sides noted the importance of “increased possibilities of financial support for Morocco” to control migrant flows as part of the EU’s long-term budget.

More than 14,700 attempted irregular departures were prevented and 52 human smuggling networks broken up in Morocco during the first three months of this year, according to interior ministry figures.

Moroccan authorities stopped more than 63,120 crossings last year and shut down 256 smuggling networks.

During a landmark visit to Rabat by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez last month, the two governments hailed a “new stage” in relations following an almost year-long rift.

The row began when Madrid allowed Brahim Ghali, leader of Western Sahrara’s pro-independence Polisario Front, to be treated for Covid-19 in a Spanish hospital.

A month later, some 10,000 migrants surged across the Moroccan border into Spain’s Ceuta enclave as border guards looked the other way, in what was widely seen as a punitive gesture by Rabat.

In March this year, Spain ended the rift by backing Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara, going back on its decades-long stance of neutrality.

Rabat calls for the territory to have an autonomous status under Moroccan sovereignty but the Polisario wants a UN-supervised referendum on self-determination as agreed in a 1991 ceasefire agreement.

Morocco is also one of Spain’s major trade partners.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

South Sudan said it has kicked off plans to nationalize the country’s oil industry in the next five years.

Awou Daniel Chuang, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Petroleum told journalists in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, that the ministry has started the process of readying the oil sector to be nationalized and stop dependence on foreign help.

“When we talk about local content, we talk about maximizing the benefits and to maximize the number of people who are working in the oil industry but it does not mean it will be 100 percent, we have already reached 90 percent. For us to reach that level of nationalization, it will not take us less than five years for us to have quality engineers and quality managers, IT can take us about five years,” Daniel said.

South Sudan, whose oil fields were destroyed during the civil war, has largely employed foreign engineers to produce and export the country’s crude oil to Sudan, where it is processed and sent to the international market.

Daniel said the ministry has constructed a geological data center that will be used for training and technical operations for the institution as part of the nationalization process.

He also said the government has purchased three aircrafts to be used for geological mapping of the areas in the country and it has as well constructed a hangar at the airport to facilitate the process.

Daniel, however, noted that the country’s production of crude oil reduced by over 20,000 barrels per day over the last three years as a result of flooding in the country.

He said the South Sudan government is working with Egypt to build dykes and drenches to address the challenge of flooding.

South Sudan is the most oil-dependent nation in the world, with oil accounting for almost the totality of exports, and around 60 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), according to the World Bank.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK