17th October, 2011
The Federal Government on Monday revealed that cross border flow of global criminal proceeds from criminal activities has hit N240 Trillion (USD 1.6 trillion) annually.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN, made this revelation in Abuja at a workshop on stolen asset recovery and management of the proceeds of crime, organized by the Federal Ministry of Justice in collaboration with Justice for All and International Centre for Asset Recovery.
In his keynote address, the Justice Minister stated that half of this amount is looted from developing and transition economies.
“Statistics further revealed that USD 20-40 billion of this inflow originated in bribes to public officials in these counties”.
Explaining that the equivalent of more than half of the continent’s external debts are held in foreign bank accounts, Adoke noted that it is very vital for the affected nations to have the political will to pursue recoveries.
Against this backdrop, the Justice Minister said he had articulated plans for wide ranging reform in the justice sector to improve institutional mandates and structures of anti-corruption institutions in the context of efficient justice delivery and accountability.
Also speaking at the occasion, the Coordinator of the national economic team and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, said that it took Nigerian government five years to recover stolen funds by former Military Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha.
She confirmed that the recovered stolen funds from Abacha was 80 percent utilised in the provision of social infrastructure but however failed to point fingers at specific infrastructure which the recovered fund was used to finance.
The Minister noted that the recovery which took place under the civilian Government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and that the Swiss Government, civil society groups in Switzerland and Nigeria insisted on monitoring the usage of the funds to ensure that it goes into provision of roads, water, health facilities and others.
Meanwhile, Dr. Okojo Iweala called on all agencies of government to return to the national treasury any recovered fund from acts of corruption.
She observed apart from ministry of Justice, that other agencies of federal government were yet to return such corruption monies to the national treasury.
She stated that returning of proceeds of corruption to the national treasury was the practice while she served as Finance Minister under former President Obasanjo pointing out that since she returned that has not been done.
In her remark at the event, the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, stated that her agency pioneered the introduction of a comprehensive non-conviction based asset forfeiture law in Nigeria.
“The principal aim was to have in place a legislation that would complement the current conviction-based regime”.
In addition, she revealed that the bill suffered a set back in the House of Representatives and regarded the reasons advanced by the legislators for defeating the bill as legally and morally unsupportable.
“Section 44 (1)b of the 1999 constitution already recognises the possibility of a forfeiture of assets through a civil process. All the National Assembly needs to do is to make a law that prescribes the mode of that process. It is therefore strongly recommended that this initiative by the AGF and DFID should result in the urgent representation of that bill to the 7th National Assembly for its consideration and passage into law” Waziri added.
By Nnamdi Felix / Abuja