It’s Difficult To Recover Nigeria’s Stolen Money Stashed Abroad —US Ambassador

The US ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James Entwistle was asked the
following question in a recent interview, read the excerpt and his
response after it:


With various figures being bandied about concerning Nigeria's looted
funds kept abroad, like in the US, amounting to between $61 billion
and $150 billion, how much really is the US trying to assist Nigeria
recover?


It is hard to say because we have not — we do not — know about all of
the divergence; all of the investigations already held. Getting the
money back will take a long time. First of all, it takes forensic
accounting work to figure out exactly what money is where; it is not
an easy task. The second thing is (that) when we make cases and we
take them to court, they can take a long time in the court. I believe
the case involving the Abacha era; they are still working on it in the
US. Therefore, the one thing that is absolutely crystal clear,
however, as we said to Mr. President in Washington, is our intent and
our willingness to work with this case. But even if they take time,
even if we do not know the exact amount (of Nigeria's looted funds)
right now, we will do everything we can to help with the cases.