Pandora Papers: Influential Nigerians secret offshore hideaways to be exposed

Over 5 years after Panama Papers of 2016, Pandora Papers, a collaborative investigation project of journalists around the globe exposing the offshore hideaways of powerful personalities around the world, is launched.

The Pandora Papers Project is facilitated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and is launching after over two years of secretive investigation work. After obtaining information of over 11.9 million confidential files, the reporting is ongoing and it involves over 150 news organisation, of which PREMIUM TIMES is the only Nigerian participant, and over 600 journalists.

So far, the collaboration is said to have revealed the financial secrets of more than 330 public officials in more than 91 countries and territories and not less than 35 current and former world leaders.

The Pandora Papers investigation will be revealing the secret owners of offshore companies, anonymous bank accounts, private jets, yachts, mansions, artworks and so on. The ICIJ said the investigation provides more information than what is usually available to law enforcement agencies.

In the days to come, PREMIUM TIMES intends to publish stories that will reveal how some of the most influential Nigerians which includes – a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, present and past state governors, current and former lawmakers, businesspeople, a popular pastor and many others – set up shell companies, and sometimes warehouse huge financial assets, in notorious secrecy jurisdictions.

The stories will also reveal how some of these individuals flout extant laws and legislations as they hide these assets, some of which have attracted the interest of law enforcement agencies in the UK and elsewhere.