By King Eze
Nigeria is once again welcoming back stolen money. This time, it is $9.5 million linked to the late General Sani Abacha, set to be repatriated under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration from the British Crown Dependency of Jersey.
Nearly three decades after Abacha’s death, the country is still tracking funds looted in the 1990s. This fact, alone, should trouble us, as Nigerians.
Abacha ruled Nigeria between 1993 and 1998, presiding over one of the darkest and most corrupt eras in Nigeria’s history. Investigations after his death revealed a vast network of shell companies and foreign accounts used to divert public funds. Estimates suggest that more than $5 billion was stolen during his short but destructive rule.
Since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999, governments have recovered billions of dollars of this money from Switzerland, the United States, the UK, and other jurisdictions. Some of the funds have reportedly been used for visible projects, major highways, bridges, and social programmes. These recoveries matter, they are not insignificant.
Yet every announcement raises the same uncomfortable question: if we are still recovering Abacha’s money, what is happening to Nigeria’s money today?
For many Nigerians, the return of looted funds brings mixed emotions: there is relief that justice, however delayed, still exists; there is also joy that stolen wealth is finding its way back home. But there is also anger, because these recoveries remind us of how much was taken, and how little accountability followed.
There is another memory Nigerians quietly recall whenever Abacha’s name resurfaces: the sense of national relief in 1998 when his rule ended. It marked the close of an era of fear and unchecked power, which many believed Nigeria would never again witness – that level of state-backed theft.
History, however, has proved more complicated, as Abacha’s looting now appears almost unsophisticated when compared to today’s corruption. Back then, the methods were blunt, and the money left trails. Accounts were frozen.
Today’s looters operate with greater finesse, inflated contracts, complex financial instruments, digital transfers, legal shields, and institutional silence. If billions are still being recovered from one man decades later, one can only imagine the scale of what is currently being siphoned beyond public scrutiny.
This is why Nigerians celebrate recoveries with one hand and sigh with the other. Asset recovery is necessary, but, it is not enough?
True victory against corruption is not the return of stolen money years later; it is stopping the theft in the first place. It is swift investigation, transparent governance, and consequences that deter future looters, not systems that allow theft to become a retirement plan.
The return of $9.5 million is welcome. Every dollar counts in a country where basic services remain underfunded. But Nigeria must move beyond symbolic wins.
Until looting becomes harder than honest service, and accountability outpaces corruption, every recovered fund will serve as both a victory, and a reminder of how much Nigeria continues to lose.
Another Abacha Loot Returns With Same Questions
