According to Punch News Nigeria -
Nigeria has recorded
illicit financial outflows of $217.7bn in 38 years, specifically between
1970 and 2008, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said in
Abuja on Wednesday.
The commission stated that the various
investigations, arrests, prosecution and assets recoveries over the
years had confirmed that the level of corruption in Nigeria had been
truly staggering.
The Acting Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Magu,
represented by its Acting Spokesperson, Tony Orilade, expressed these
views at a one-day conference organised by Online Publishers Association
of Nigeria with the theme: “Free press and objective reporting in the
2019 election year.”
The EFCC boss said corruption in Nigeria was being perpetrated by individuals and groups both in the private and public sectors.
He
identified former state governors, ministers, high ranking military
officers, chief executives of parastatals and top bureaucrats in state
and federal agencies as culprits involved in the public sector theft.
Magu
said, “The alarming rate of corruption committed by these unpatriotic
elements can be partly seen in the number of convictions secured by the
EFCC from Nigerian courts since I assumed duty as the head of the
commission in 2015.
“The figure stands at 103 in 2015, 195 in
2016, 189 in 2017 and 312 for the period of January to December 2018.
The total figure for the period of 2015 to 2018 is a mind-blowing 799
convictions. In the process of such convictions, the EFCC recovered
N794.5bn, $261m, £1.1m, €8.1m and CFA86, 500.
“One of the most
graphic ways through which the absence of democratic accountability
manifests itself in Nigeria today is through the prevalence of rampant
corruption at all levels of governance. For example, Transparency
International reported that Nigeria was the most corrupt country in the
world for years: 1996, 1997, 2000 and second in the line for remaining
years up to 2003.
“In February 2015, a high-level panel on
illicit financial flows from Africa constituted by the African Union,
under the chairmanship of a former President of South Africa, Thabo
Mbeki, revealed that Nigeria ranked first among ten African countries by
cumulative illicit financial flows between 1970 and 2008. The total
outflow from Nigeria for the period was $217.7bn constituting about 30.5
per cent of Africa’s total share.”
source
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