Malami to EFCC: Abacha Loot Allegations Are Baseless, Illogical

Eshiorameh Sebastian

Former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has dismissed the allegations brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as “baseless, illogical and wholly devoid of substance.”

The allegations stem from his invitation by the EFCC on November 28, 2025, concerning the recovery of the $322.5 million Abacha loot.

The commission’s inquiry, according to Malami, is based on an alleged “duplication” of a recovery process already completed by a Swiss lawyer, Enrico Monfrini, before Malami assumed office in 2015.

From this premise, the EFCC raised allegations of abuse of office and money laundering.

In a statement released by his Special Assistant on Media, Mohammed Bello Doka, Malami systematically dismissed the EFCC’s position, anchoring his defense on legal definition, documentary evidence, and what he termed “elementary logic.”

“The EFCC’s allegation collapses immediately when subjected to facts,” Malami stated.

He clarified that a recovery can only be considered legally complete upon the actual lodgement of funds into the Federation Account. He pointed out that as of 2016, when the Buhari administration initiated the fresh process for the $310 million (which had grown to $322.5 million with interest), “there was no lodgement of any such funds… There was therefore no completed recovery in existence, and nothing whatsoever to duplicate.”

The former minister presented what he called an “instructive and revealing” piece of evidence: in December 2016, multiple lawyers, including Mr. Monfrini himself, applied to be engaged to recover the same funds.

“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 argued, labelling this contradiction as the heart of the “absurdity” in the EFCC’s narrative.

Detailing the rationale behind his decision, Malami revealed that Monfrini had demanded a $5 million upfront deposit and a success fee of 40%, later reduced to 20%. In contrast, the administration’s policy was to pay no upfront deposits and cap success fees at 5%. Consequently, a Nigerian law firm was engaged on a transparent 5% success-fee-only basis.

Malami described this as a major cost saving victory for Nigeria. He calculated that choosing the 5% model over Monfrini’s 20% demand saved the country 15% of the recovered sum, amounting to approximately ₦76.8 billion. When compared to the initial 40% proposal, the savings rise to about ₦179.2 billion.

“These are concrete, measurable benefits to the Nigerian state,” he asserted, maintaining that any suggestion of abuse of office or money laundering in the face of such savings is unreasonable.

The former AGF also clarified the distinct tranches of Abacha loot recovered under his watch, noting that the $322.5 million from Switzerland was used for Conditional Cash Transfers under World Bank monitoring, while a separate $321 million recovery from Jersey was earmarked for major infrastructure projects.

He thanked his supporters for their confidence and vowed to stand firm against what he described as “political witch-hunt and intimidation.”

“I remain confident that truth, law and reason will ultimately prevail,” Malami concluded, reiterating his position that the allegations lack any foundation in fact or logic.