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Trump should revoke the visas of corrupt Nigerian rulers

On April 12, Nigeria’s principal anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), announced that it had found $43.4 million stashed in a vacant apartment in Lagos. The cash was in U.S. dollars, British pounds, and Nigerian naira.
The EFCC did not reveal the owner of the cash—if it even knows. The EFCC said its seizure was the result of a tip-off under a program whereby the whistleblower received 2.5 percent of recovered funds. The Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the temporary forfeiture of the cash.
The developer of the building where the cash was stashed is Adamu Muazu, former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which governed Nigeria from 1999 to 2015 during the presidencies of Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. Muazu was also the governor of Bauchi from 1999 to 2007.
In response to media speculation that he owns the stash, Muazu stated that he is a property developer who built the building and sold all of the apartments through a real estate agency, and that he has no knowledge of the money. However, the media says that sale of the apartments is still underway and that Muazu has reserved the penthouse for his own use.
According to the media, an unnamed, senior EFCC official has suggested the money belonged to Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, the now-fired former retail director for the national oil company, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). (According to the media, she was fired in connection with a NNPC scandal involving its illegal sale of 130 million liters of gasoline.) She denies owning the stash, but, according to the media, said that the owner was “well known.”

Related: Nigeria seizes $43 million cash stash in Lagos house

The media also reports that according to one source, the apartment where the cash was found is owned by a daughter of Anthony (‘Tony’) Anenih. A former minister, Anenih was also a former chairman of the board of trustees of the PDP.
In 2009, a Nigerian senate committee investigated the use of N300 billion (Roughly $2 billion.) in the transport sector. It recommended prosecution of thirteen former ministers, including Anenih. Later that year, the senate deferred indefinitely consideration of the report; it is now a dead letter.

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