FORMER Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, has strongly refuted allegations by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that he duplicated the recovery of a tranche of late Gen. Sani Abacha’s looted funds amounting to $310 million—later accrued to $322.5 million with interest.
In a statement sent to News Point Nigeria by his media aide, Mohammed Doka, Malami dismissed the claims as “baseless, illogical, and devoid of factual foundation,” insisting that the EFCC’s narrative collapses under scrutiny.
The EFCC reportedly alleges that Malami duplicated a recovery process that had been concluded by Swiss lawyer, Enrico Monfrini, prior to his assumption of office in 2015.
But Malami argued that such a claim is false, noting that no funds were lodged into Nigeria’s Federation Account as of 2016, an essential requirement for any recovery to be deemed complete.
“A recovery can only be said to have been completed when the funds are lodged into the Federation Account. As at 2016, there was no lodgement of any such funds. There was therefore no completed recovery in existence, and nothing whatsoever to duplicate,” Malami stated.
He further argued that the EFCC’s position is contradicted by Monfrini himself, who formally applied in December 2016 to be re-engaged by the Buhari administration for the same recovery.
“It is entirely illogical for a lawyer to apply in December 2016 to be engaged to recover funds he purportedly recovered two years earlier,” Malami said, describing the contradiction as evidence that the EFCC’s claims are “internally incoherent and absurd.”
Malami said Monfrini had demanded a $5 million upfront deposit and a success fee of 40 percent later negotiated down to 20 percent—conditions the Nigerian government found unacceptable.
Instead, the Buhari administration engaged a Nigerian law firm on a 5 percent success-fee arrangement. According to Malami, this saved the country between 15 and 35 percent of the recovered sum, representing ₦76.8 billion to ₦179.2 billion in public funds.
The former minister clarified that he supervised distinct Abacha loot recoveries during his tenure, including:
$322.5 million from Switzerland (2017–2018) deployed to Conditional Cash Transfers under a World Bank-supervised framework.
$321 million from Jersey (2020) allocated to major national infrastructure projects, including:
Lagos–Ibadan Expressway
Abuja–Kano Road
Second Niger Bridge
He criticized what he termed a “deliberate attempt to conflate separate recoveries” in order to frame his actions as fraudulent.
Malami insisted that all actions taken under his watch were lawful, transparent, and aligned with the constitutional powers of the Attorney-General.
He described allegations of corruption, money laundering, or abuse of office as “politically motivated and lacking reasonable basis.”
The former minister confirmed that he honoured an EFCC invitation on November 28, 2025, which he said was “fruitful,” expressing confidence that the truth would prevail.
He thanked supporters for standing by him, saying he remained committed to defending his integrity and legacy.