By Wisdom Nwedene, Abuja
The United States and the Federal Government have signed an agreement to reinstate $954,000 allegedly stolen by a former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, 9news Nigeria has learnt.
The agreement was signed on Thursday in Abuja by the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Leonard, and the Solicitor-General of the Federation and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Beatrice Jedy-Agba.
Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa State was detained in London on charges of money laundering in September 2005. At the time of his arrest, Metropolitan police found about £1m in cash in his London home. Later they found a total of £1.8m ($3.2m) in cash and bank accounts. He was found to own four homes in London[6] worth an alleged £10 million.
His state’s monthly federal allocation for the last six years has been in the order of £32 million. He jumped bail in December 2005 from the United Kingdom by allegedly disguising himself as a woman, though Alamieyeseigha denies this claim.
Alamieyeseigha was impeached on allegations of corruption on 9 December 2005.[3]
Nigeria
On July 26, 2007, Alamieyeseigha pleaded guilty before a Nigerian court to six charges and was sentenced to two years in prison on each charge; however, because the sentences were set to run concurrently and the time was counted from the point of his arrest nearly two years before the sentences, his actual sentence was relatively short. Many of his assets were ordered to be forfeited to the Bayelsa state government. According to Alamieyeseigha, he only pleaded guilty due to his age and would have fought the charges had he been younger. On July 27, just hours after being taken to prison, he was released due to time already served.
In April 2009, Alamieyeseigha pledged a donation of 3,000,000 naira to the Akassa Development Foundation.
In December 2009, the federal government hired a British law firm to help dispose of four expensive properties acquired by Alamieyeseigha in London. Alamieyeseigha had bought one of these properties for £1,750,000.00 in July 2003, paying in cash. Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha used it as his London residence, and as the registered office of Solomon and Peters Inc.
United States
On June 28, 2012, the United States (US) Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that it had executed an asset forfeiture order on $401,931 in a Massachusetts brokerage fund, traceable to Alamieyeseigha. US prosecutors filed court papers in April 2011 targeting the Massachusetts brokerage fund and a $600,000 home in Rockville,[6] Maryland, which they alleged were the proceeds of corruption. A motion for default judgement and civil forfeiture was granted by a Massachusetts federal district judge in early June 2012. The forfeiture order was the first to be made under the DoJ’s fledgling Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.
Pardon
On 12 March 2013, Alamieyeseigha was pardoned by President Goodluck Jonathan, but his pardoning was criticised by many.
How He died
Alamieyeseigha was reported to have died of cardiac arrest at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital on 10 October 2015.
However, in a later interview, Bayelsa State Information Commissioner, Esueme Kikile revealed that the former Governor “died of complications arising from high blood pressure and diabetes which affected his kidney.”
