The government of Switzerland and the Swiss Federation Council (SFC) have indicated their readiness to return the sum of $321 million to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The sum to be repatriated by the Swiss government is part of the money stashed away by the late former Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha.
The readiness of the Swiss government to repatriate the said sum was made known in Abuja yesterday by the Ambassador of Switzerland to Nigeria, Mr. Eric Mayoraz.
Mr. Eric Mayoraz while signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the SFC and the Federal Government on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters noted that the document will facilitate easy repatriation of money lodged in Swiss Banks.
“We have repatriated $720 million in 2005 to Nigeria and we are now in the process of repatriating $321 million from the second batch of Abacha funds that we have collected.
“The MoU is for the future cases, so it will allow a better cooperation and of course, if Nigeria has some new cases to submit to Switzerland, it will accelerate the process through this MoU that we just signed today.
“It will reduce time for the process of transmitting the legal request from Nigeria to Switzerland and also from Switzerland to Nigeria because the MoU is not only for looted assets, it is also for all criminal matters”.