The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has confiscated the international passport of former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, as part of an expanding investigation into the handling of an alleged $490 million Abacha loot traced through a Mutual Legal Assistance (MLAT) process.
A senior EFCC official confirmed on Sunday that Malami has been restricted from leaving the country for the next month. One of the conditions for his release on Saturday was a directive requiring him to report daily to the agency’s headquarters in Abuja for continued interrogation.
The source added that he may only travel outside Nigeria with EFCC approval or a court order.
According to the investigator, a fact sheet prepared on Malami shows several issues he must address in the coming weeks, including an explanation of the whereabouts of the $490 million in question.
“We didn’t say he stole the money, but he must account for it,” the source said, noting that the seizure of his passport was necessary due to the volume of documents he must review and the detailed interviews ahead.
The EFCC said it would refrain from trading accusations publicly, insisting that its findings will be made known after a thorough investigation.
Reacting in a post on X, Malami dismissed the allegations as fabricated and thanked Allah for what he described as divine intervention. He confirmed he had been released pending further meetings with investigators but did not comment on the passport seizure.
In a separate statement, Malami also rejected claims by the EFCC that he duplicated the recovery process for the $310 million Abacha loot—later rising to $322.5 million with interest. Through his media aide, Mohammed Doka, he described the accusations as illogical and lacking factual basis.
He argued that the EFCC’s narrative was flawed because no recovery was completed before he took office in 2015, noting that no funds had been deposited into the Federation Account as of 2016.
Malami said Swiss lawyer Enrico Monfrini’s application in December 2016 to be re-engaged for the same recovery effort further proved that no earlier recovery had been completed.
According to him, Monfrini had requested a $5 million upfront fee and a success fee initially pegged at 40 percent before being reduced to 20 percent—terms the Buhari administration rejected. Instead, a Nigerian law firm was hired on a 5 percent success-fee basis, which he said saved Nigeria between ₦76.8 billion and ₦179.2 billion.
He also highlighted several distinct tranches of recovered Abacha funds during his tenure, including $322.5 million from Switzerland between 2017 and 2018, used for Conditional Cash Transfers under a World Bank-monitored framework, and about $321 million from Jersey in 2020, which was channelled into major infrastructure projects such as the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway, Abuja–Kano Road, and the Second Niger Bridge.
Malami said attempts to conflate the recoveries or portray legitimate processes as duplication were misleading. He insisted all actions were legally grounded and undertaken in the public interest, dismissing insinuations of abuse of office or money laundering as baseless.
He described the EFCC probe as politically motivated and expressed confidence that the ongoing investigation would vindicate him.
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