Nigeria’s Justice Minister Abubakar Malami, has said that the country recently recovered $85 million of stolen assets from the UK. He claimed the money is linked to the Malabu scandal, a major case of alleged bribery involving oil giants Shell and ENI.
The Malabu scandal is one of the biggest corruption cases to hit Nigeria’s oil industry. Investigators in Nigeria and in Italy claim that $1.1bn – which was paid to the government by international oil companies in 2006 – never made it into the national coffers.
The money recovered is a tiny fraction of the amount allegedly taken but a coup for the government nonetheless. Since he came to office in 2015.
President Muhammadu Buhari has been on a drive to repatriate money lost to corruption, much of which is spent in the US and the UK. Earlier this year, Italian prosecutors took up the case against ENI and Shell for their alleged part in the scandal. Ten days ago they issued charges against senior Shell executives.
Source: BBC
