The Bailiwick of Jersey has announced plans to return more than $9.5 million to the Nigerian government, representing part of the proceeds of corruption seized from Nigeria’s former military ruler, Sani Abacha.
The funds, which were confiscated through civil forfeiture proceedings, will be deployed to support a major infrastructure project in Nigeria, according to a statement issued on Friday by the British High Commission.
The statement disclosed that the repatriation is being carried out under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Jersey and the Federal Government of Nigeria. Jersey’s Attorney General, Mark Temple KC, signed the agreement in December 2025.
The MoU builds on two earlier repatriation agreements between both parties, under which more than $300 million linked to the Abacha regime had previously been returned to Nigeria.
Those funds were applied to three major infrastructure projects: the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Second Niger Bridge, and the Abuja-Kano Road, all of which are now reported to be completed.
Under the current agreement, the newly repatriated $9.5 million will be channelled towards the final stages of the Abuja-Kano Road project. The 375-kilometre highway is considered a strategic transport corridor, linking Nigeria’s federal capital with Kano, its second-largest city and a major commercial hub in the north.
Commenting on the development, Temple described the recovery as a validation of Jersey’s legal framework for tackling financial crime. He said the successful repatriation demonstrated the effectiveness of the island’s civil forfeiture regime as a critical instrument in the global fight against corruption. Temple also commended the cooperation between Nigerian authorities and Jersey’s Economic Crime and Confiscation Unit.
Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, welcomed the recovery, describing it as further evidence of strengthening international collaboration against illicit financial flows.
According to Fagbemi, the repatriation underscores the effectiveness of Nigeria’s partnership with foreign jurisdictions in ensuring that looted public funds find no safe haven abroad. He assured that the Nigerian government would utilise the recovered assets strictly in line with the provisions of the MoU.
The forfeiture followed an application filed on 29 November 2023 under the Forfeiture of Assets (Civil Proceedings) (Jersey) Law 2018. Jersey’s Civil Asset Recovery Fund had earlier disclosed that the broader pool of funds, exceeding $300 million and traced to the Abacha era, was initially laundered through the United States financial system in the 1990s before being transferred to Jersey.
The specific sum was held in a Jersey bank account controlled by Doraville, a shell company, and was seized by Jersey authorities in June 2019. Under the terms of the repatriation arrangement, Jersey will retain $5 million from the recovered assets, while the United States is entitled to keep an equivalent amount.
Over the years, hundreds of millions of dollars looted during Abacha’s rule and stashed in foreign banks, mainly across Europe and the United States, have been recovered and returned to Nigeria. The former military ruler died in office in 1998, but international efforts to trace and repatriate assets linked to his regime have continued for decades.