Why Ibori Loot Won’t Be Returned To Delta State – Malami

• Malami and the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, announced the return of £4.2 million recovered from a Ibori and his cohorts

The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, on Tuesday, explained why the loot recovered from former Delta State Governor, James Ibori will be used for federal projects.

The funds, set to arrive in the country within two weeks, are expected to be used for the construction of the second Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kano road, and Lagos-Ibadan Express road and not returned to the Delta State Government where it was pilfered from.

“The major consideration relating to who is entitled to a fraction or perhaps the money in its entirety is a function of law and international diplomacy,” Malami said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

Read also: UK Govt To Return £4.2m Ibori Loot

He argued that the law that was alleged to have been breached by Ibori was a federal law and that the parties of interests involved in the repatriation of the funds were national and not sub-national governments.

“All the processes associated with the recovery were consummated by the federal government and the federal government is, indeed, the victim of crime and not sub-national,” he said.

When pressed on whether the British government had insisted that the money be spent on certain projects, Malami said it was not “a matter of insistence but a matter of negotiation between two sovereign states.”

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