SERAP seeks repatriation of Alamieyeseigha’s loot.

  
 Diepreye Alamieyeseigha

Culled from THE NATION

A rights group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), yesterday urged the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Adoke (SAN), to “urgently seek from the United States (US) Government repatriation of the $401,931 assets belonging to former Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.
 Alamieyeseigha was convicted of money laundering and unjust enrichment while in office.”
In a letter by its Executive Director, Mr. Adetokunbo Mumuni, SERAP said: “On June 28, 2012, the US Department of Justice obtained the first forfeiture judgment ever issued under the new Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative against Alamieyeseigha. 
“The initiative is designed to target and recover the proceeds of corruption laundered in or through the US.  The Nigerian Government has not made a request for the repatriation of the stolen wealth. The failure to repatriate the recovered assets illustrates the government’s attitude to the recovery of stolen assets. 
“Being a party to the United Nations (UN) Convention against Corruption, Nigeria has a legal obligation to make a request for mutual legal assistance to the US for the return of the assets. The convention describes asset recovery as its ‘fundamental principle’ and requires states to ‘afford one another the widest measure of cooperation and assistance in this regard’. 
“SERAP’s US Volunteer Counsel Prof. Alexander W. Sierck is in a high level discussion with US officials on the matter, but without the Nigerian Government taking the initiative, the process will not go far.”