President Muhammadu Buhari made a highly commendable call on the international community to strive towards the total dismantling of safe havens for looted monies around the world in one of the most important speeches he has ever made as Nigeria’s leader.
Addressing the 70th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in the wee hours of Tuesday, September 29 , 2015, Buhari urged his colleagues and all well-meaning people all over the world to do more to ensure that stolen funds and assets in their countries are returned to the countries where they were taken from, adding that corruption is one of the cross-border crimes the world must combine efforts to overcome.
Buhari’s call was sequel to similar entreaties by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara, who early in September, literally went on his knees to ask developed countries to return looted funds from Nigeria.
It is trite reasoning that where there is no safe haven there will be no motivation for looters to engage in mindless plundering of their countries’ treasuries. It has also been established that the main direction of flow of looted funds is from Africa and the Third World (including countries like oil-rich Nigeria) to the advanced countries of Europe and America, where advanced banking systems have been evolved to keep the proceeds of crime safe for their owners until they need them.
It is also in these countries, including rapidly emerging Asian countries, that public treasury looters in the Third World go to invest in luxury real estates, thus laundering proceeds of crimes and rendering their countries backward and destitute.
It is estimated that Nigeria has, since independence, lost over US$500 billion looted and laundered funds transferred through all sorts of devious means to these crime “safe havens”. This amount alone is enough to completely reverse our infrastructural deficit, especially in the areas of roads, rail, power, education and the gamut of social services if returned to us.
It is high time that the world began to see the countries that hide stolen funds for their criminal “clients” as partners in crime and met with appropriate sanctions. It is a crime against humanity when we consider that many of the economic migrants from Africa to Europe and America are citizens and victims of political criminals who transferred their countries commonwealth to safe private accounts abroad.
It is the height of perfidy and double-standards for the developed countries to openly frown on corruption and corrupt regimes while at the same time eagerly permit stolen funds to be warehoused for them in their countries.
We say bravo to the federal government for making this call and support it wholeheartedly.
