In 2019 ,Chatham House, a UK Think Tank, estimated that more than US$580 billion had been stolen from Nigeria since independence in 1960. Former President Sani Abacha’s theft of at least US$5 billion during his time in office was the most brazen case, but he has been joined by all manner of Nigerian public officials who have siphoned off or diverted state funds for their own benefit.
From time to time, stolen asset recovery efforts in Nigeria have been successful, with the U.S., Switzerland, and U.K. agreeing to repatriate close to US$1B over the last decade. Past repatriations have gone badly, however, with transferred assets disappearing into the State Treasury without any transparency or accountability, or being used to fund questionable projects that may have resulted from renewed corruption deals. While the Nigerian Government and CSO partners, led by ANEEJ, did an excellent job in monitoring the distribution of more than US$322.5m of returned Abacha-era stolen assets in 2019-2022, there is always a risk that future repatriations will lack transparency and accountability.
The BOTA Foundation in Kazakhstan, a PtP-style foundation established in 2009 as a result of an agreement between the governments of the U.S., Kazakhstan, and Switzerland to use more than US$100m in repatriated corruption assets to assist vulnerable mothers and children, provides a template for similar efforts in Nigeria.[1] In order to address concerns among returning countries that the funds would simply be re-absorbed into the corruption stream, BOTA was carefully designed to be governed by an international board, including U.S. and Swiss-government appointed delegates, to monitor how the repatriated funds were being spent. Ultimately, the Foundation had more than 200,000 beneficiaries and effectively spent its available funds through NGO grants, university scholarships, and a complex conditional cash transfer program that were all evaluated very positively. By proposing a similar model in the case of Nigeria, similar concerns could be addressed, smoothing the way to buy-in from returning countries.[2] NEAT will investigate specific cases in the asset return pipeline to determine the best cases toward which to target advocacy efforts, with the goal of tapping into a portion of the repatriated assets to endow an independent foundation to support anti-corruption and socio-economic development initiatives.
Possible Focus of a foundation from Recovered Stolen Assets
An obvious focus for a foundation arising from the capture of returned stolen assets would be to support efforts to promote an atmosphere of accountability, transparency, and good governance in Nigeria through awareness-raising programs, youth civic engagement strengthening, and advocacy for and support of improved enforcement of existing and potential anti-corruption measures.
However, given the broad impact of corruption on the overall development of Nigeria, such a foundation could also usefully support a similarly broad range of development goals—such as education and job training programs, anti-discrimination and women’s empowerment, anti-poverty programs, and infrastructure development.
[1] See Bornstein, A. (2016), The BOTA Foundation: A Model for the Safe Return of Stolen Assets? (Philanthropication thru Privatization, Case Study no. 1), available at: https://p-t-p.org/sdm_downloads/the-bota-foundation-a-model-for-the-safe-return-of-stolen-assets-2016/.
[2] See Bornstein, A. and Salamon, L.M. (2017), How to Apply PtP to Stolen or Stranded Assets (PtP How-To Booklet no. 1), available at: https://p-t-p.org/sdm_downloads/how-to-apply-ptp-to-stolen-or-stranded-assets-ptp-how-to-booklet-no-1-12-2017/.