Former First Lady, Hajia Maryam Sani Abacha, has said her late spouse, Gen. Sani Abacha, did not steal Nigeria’s money as alleged in certain quarters.
Rather, she claimed, the late military leader saved money for Nigeria, but was looted after his demise.
She, therefore, challenged those alleging her husband looted the nation’s treasury to substantiate their claims with unassailable facts.
Abacha, ruled Nigeria from 1993 to 1998, after sacking the Earnest Shonekan-led Interim Government in the wake of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections annulled under the watch of the military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.
*The recovered loots
The total amount of looted funds recovered from late the Head of State, General Sani Abacha in the past 24 years was put at $5.12 billion.
Available records showed that in 1998, a total of $750 million was rec overed from the late military ruler’s family, $64 million was recovered from Switzerland in 2000, $1.2 billion in 2002, $160 million (2003) and $88 million were recovered from Jersey and Switzerland respectively, with another $461.3 million returned to the country from Switzerland in 2005.
Similarly, another $44.1 million from Switzerland in 2005, $227 million was from Liechtenstein in 2014, $322 million from Switzerland (2018), and $311.7 million repatriated in 2020 from the USA and others totalling $5.12 billion as at July 2023.
The figures were provided in reports put together some two years ago by Aljazeera and the BBC as well as data from the government, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund(IMF), Transparency International, and the Socio – Economic Rights And Accountability Project (SERAP).
*Claims lack basis – Abacha’s wife
But dismissing this in an interview with TVC, the late military leader’s widow rhetorically asked: “Who is the witness of the monies that were being stashed?
“Did you see the signature or the evidence of any monies stashed abroad? And the monies that my husband kept for Nigeria, in a months, the monies vanished. People are not talking about that.
“Why are you blaming somebody? Is that tribalism or a religious problem or what are the problems with Nigerians?
“I pray for Nigerians. I pray for all of us. I pray that we should have goodness in our hearts. We should stop telling lies and blaming people.
“Why are we so bad towards each other? Because somebody is a northerner or a southerner, somebody is a Muslim or a Christian, or somebody is nice or… It’s not fair.”
She challenged the media to focus more on educating the people on the happenings around them.
“I think the press should try, the press, you, the press, should try to educate the people.
“You are here to educate the people, to inform the people and to entertain. You are here to help the country. You are not here to bastardise people. People are not that bad. 27 years ago and you are still talking about Abacha. He must be very powerful and loved by Nigerians. We thank God for that,” she said.
The ex-first lady made allusion to reference being made to the a stable economy under her husband’s watch with increased foreign exchange reserves and reduced external debt, querying: “So, where did he steal the money from? So where would he have stolen the money from?”
Maryam further said: “Babangida doesn’t make Nigeria alone. Abacha does not make Nigeria alone. Abiola and everybody, nobody is big enough for Nigeria. We are all very important.
“Even the single man on the street is very important. We are all human beings, for goodness sake. All these wahala should stop. Babangida cannot make things or unmake things.”
*June 12 annulment
On the controversial June 12 presidential election, she said it was not done by the Abacha-led regime as claimed in some quarters.
“All I know is that the annulment was not done by my husband.
“If it was him, that means he was very powerful… even more powerful than the president. If the president was there and somebody else was calling the shots, that means Abacha was the greatest,” she said. (Courtesy: Blue Print)
