LAGOS: Britain and Nigeria on Tuesday signed a deal to return £4.2 million ($5.82 million) recovered from a former governor of oil-rich Delta state, who served a jail term in London for fraud.

"This is the first time that money recovered from criminals will be returned to Nigeria (from Britain) since an agreement was signed in 2016 to recover and return the proceeds of bribery or corruption in a responsible and transparent way," Britain's Foreign Office said in a statement to AFP in Lagos.

It said the money stolen by James Ibori, governor of southern oil-rich Delta state between 1999 and 2007, was retrieved by British law enforcement agencies.

Home Office Minister Baroness Williams described the deal as "a significant moment in our fight against illicit finance wherever it is found." Ibori was jailed in April 2012 for fraud amounting to nearly £50 million (at the time $78.6 million / 62 million euros) following a drawn-out extradition procedure and his evasion of arrest and prosecution in Nigeria.