No fewer than 56 dead Nigerian names with reported unclaimed estates and other valuable assets in the United Kingdom have been published by the United Kingdom government.
This was contained in UK’s government Treasury Solicitor website which was last updated on September 8, 2022, as reported by BusinessDay.
The unclaimed estates have a 30-year time limit from the date of death before it is removed if no person comes to claim the ownership.
Oldest victim
According to the report, one of the oldest affected Nigerians was identified as Mark N’wogo, who died on December 9, 1992, in Surrey, United Kingdom.
But the assets he left behind have gone unclaimed for nearly 30 years, which means that his properties would be surrendered to the British government by December 2022.
He was believed to have served in the Navy, which gave his birth year as 1926, and to have an unspecified family in Sapele, Delta state, but neither this individual nor any others had stepped forward to claim the deceased’s possessions.
The values of these estates are not published; instead, only information about their deceased owners is available.
Familiar name
Another familiar name on the list is Victor Adedapo Olufemi Fani-Kayode, who is alleged to have died on August 15, 2001, in Birmingham, with the Birmingham City Council identified as the informant.
The Treasury Solicitor released a list of untaken estates that had recently been mentioned but had not yet been managed, as well as past instances that had been administered but had not yet been claimed within the time constraints for doing so.
Estates with a 30-year time limit from the date of death are likewise exempted.
“We frequently hear of accounts in financial institutions belonging to deceased people that are never claimed and are never made public by these institutions. I believe we can take a leaf out of the UK’s book in this area to promote transparency,” says Olaitan Akinnubi, a Lagos-based lawyer.
“I believe that making information about deceased people and their unclaimed assets public in the UK is something that is worthwhile.”
However, most of the deceased have little information on relatives to whom their assets may be transferred, and for those with available information, it is quite inadequate and hard to trace beneficiaries.
Other names
The list includes a certain Arbel Aai’Lotta’Qua Abouarh that died on February 5, 1998, in Chiswick, London, and is thought to have different variations in the spelling of his name. Information on file indicates that he may have been married in December 1959 (place unknown) and had four children from the marriage.
