S’ Court Declines to Unfreeze Abacha Family’s Foreign Accounts

The Supreme Court last Friday declined a request by family members of the late Head of state, General Sani Abacha to unfreeze accounts belonging to him and other members of the family in foreign countries.

The accounts, which are in banks in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Jersey, Liechenstein and Luxembourg, were frozen following mutual judicial assistance agreements entered with the countries by the Nigerian government during the administration of the then President, Olusegun Obasanjo, in 1999.

Dissatisfied with the government’s action, the Abacha’s family dragged the federal government to court to reverse the said directive.

Unfortunately their request both at the trial court and Court of Appeal was turned down, forcing them to approach the final court in the country for justice.

Delivering judgement yesterday in the appeal filed by a son of the late dictator, Mohammed Abacha, a five-man panel of the apex court led by Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, unanimously held that the suit, which was first initiated before the Federal High Court in Kano in January 2004, had become statute-barred.

According to Justice Chima Nweze, who prepared the lead judgment of the panel, it was too late forth eA bach a family to query the decision taken by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1999, via a letter authored by the then Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), KanuAgabi(SAN).

The court in the appeal marked: SC/68/2010, held among others, that in view of the evidence presented by parties, it was left with no other options than to uphold the earlier concurrent decisions of the two lower courts (the Federal High Court, Kano and the Court of Appeal, Kaduna division ), to the effect that the action was statute bar red.

In the judgment read by Justice Amina Augie, the apex court held that, “In all forms, with the eloquent submission of the respondents’ counsel, and submissions anchored on the admitted evidence, I have no hesitation in affirming the concurrent decisions of the lower courts.