New Jersey To Return $8.9m Looted Under Jonathan To Nigeria

Nigeria will receive $8.9 million that was embezzled by former President Jonathan from Jersey

The £6.9 million ($8.9 million) worth of stolen property should be returned to Nigeria, according to a decision made by the Royal Court of Jersey.

The decision was made in response to a forfeiture notice that Jersey's Attorney General issued in November, claiming that the money that had been deposited in a Jersey bank account had probably been stolen in 2014 by officials from the Nigerian government.

According to reports, the money laundering took the form of official contracts for the purchase of weapons during Boko Haram's attacks in Nigeria from 2009 to 2015. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under former President Goodluck Jonathan controlled from 2010 to 2015. Recall that there was a great deal of controversy surrounding the purchase of weapons to combat insurgency, with the then-National Jersey returning $8.9 million to Nigeria that had been looted under former President Jonathan.

Later in 2014, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the then-president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), had his private jet impounded in South Africa with $10 million in cash that was purportedly intended to be used for the purchase of military hardware.

The Jersey court discovered that the majority of the money, which was originally meant for legal arms deals, had been siphoned off through shell corporations and foreign bank accounts connected to the defunct Nigerian government.

Mark Temple KC, the attorney general of Jersey, highlighted the cooperation between his state and the Federal Republic of Nigeria during the rehabilitation process. Temple emphasized how the 2018 Forfeiture Law works to fight corruption and give money back to victims of crime. The Nigerian government is to be negotiated an asset return agreement with.

He declared: “This case again demonstrates the effectiveness of the 2018 Forfeiture Law in recovering the proceeds of corruption and restoring that money to victims of crime. I now intend to negotiate an asset return agreement with the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”