UK, UNODC, ICPC, Police, NAPTIP Back ANEEJ’s Demand for Central Database of Recovered Assets

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja
The United Kingdom Government, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and Nigeria’s leading anti-graft agencies have thrown their weight behind the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) in its demand for a unified, public, and tamper-proof database of all recovered assets in the country.

The coalition gave its support yesterday in Abuja during a stakeholders’ briefing on data management in asset recovery, while comparing Nigeria’s system with those of the UK, US, Italy and France.

In his opening speech, ANEEJ Executive Director, Rev. David Ugolor, said that while Nigeria had a good law in the Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Act, 2022, implementation was poor.
Represented by Deputy Executive Director, Comrade Leo Atakpu, Ugolor said that as of April 2026, some agencies were uploading forfeited assets to the central database, others were still finalising access, while some had not started at all.

“Recovering an asset is only part of the task. Stakeholders need to know what was identified, frozen, forfeited, where it is and how it is being managed. Without reliable data, that story cannot be told with confidence,” Ugolor said.
He noted that the database had not yet been opened to the public, and Nigeria still had no single identifier to track an asset from seizure to court to Treasury.

For the UK, the Illicit Finance Adviser at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Jehanzeb Khan, represented by Anicestus Atakpu, said the UK cherished its partnership with Nigeria in fighting illicit finance, noting that effective recovery depended on transparent data.

UNODC Country Representative, Cheikh Ousmane Toure, represented by Princess Chifiero, said Nigeria was a leading country in asset recovery, citing the launch of the national database of forfeited assets in May and Nigeria’s exit from the FATF grey-list in October.

She, however, queried: “What was recovered? Where is it now? Is it worth it today? And what is it being used for? Until you can answer those questions from reliable records, public confidence will continue to stay fragile.”

The Director-General of NAPTIP, Binta Lami Adamu Bello, represented by Dr. Amina Sa’idu Dauda, said asset recovery is central to fighting human trafficking and called for a unified, accurate, tamper-proof system.

The Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Rilwan Disu, represented by DC Ibrahim M. Musa, described asset recovery as a hydra-headed issue bedevilled by mistrust and welcomed civil society pressure to build stronger institutions.

The Chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau, Dr. Abdullahi Usman Bello, represented by Dr. Fatima Kere Ahmed, said recovery was beyond seizure and required proper documentation to preserve value.

The Chairman of ICPC, Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu (SAN), represented by Adamu Baba, said recovering an asset was the beginning of responsibility, lamenting fragmented records and inconsistent reporting, and called for common asset identifiers.

Civil Society Adviser at the Open Government Partnership, Uchenna Arisukwu, said managing recovered assets was as critical as recovering them to prevent re-looting.

ANEEJ said its comparative report was still a draft and called for stakeholder inputs to produce practical recommendations to strengthen Nigeria’s asset recovery ecosystem.