- All countries must cooperate to make the global war on money laundering successful
We identify with the frustration of the Federal Government as expressed by the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, over the challenges it faces in repatriating funds looted from our country by some of the past leaders. Of note, under municipal laws, receiving stolen property with the knowledge that the goods are stolen, exposes the receiver to the same punishment as the thief. Unfortunately, under international law, this is not the same, as some countries duplicitously create the enabling legal regime for laundering of stolen assets.
Such ignominious lacuna has enabled countries, especially developed countries, to connive with thieving public officials from Third World countries, to create safe havens for warehousing humongous resources stolen from the developing countries. This is sad, and we urge the international community to redress this anomaly.
Vice President Osinbajo raised Nigeria’s frustration in repatriating looted funds, when he declared open the 18th Ministerial Committee meeting of the Inter-Governmental Action Against Money Laundering in West Africa (also known as GIABA).
GIABA is an agency established by ECOWAS with the responsibility for facilitating the adoption and implementation of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (CFT) protocols in West Africa. In his address, Osinbajo said: “Permit me to raise a matter of considerable importance to many of our nations. It is the difficulty we experience in repatriating proceeds of corruption from financial institutions of the more developed nations.” Indeed, it is strange that while developed countries harass developing countries to sign the conventions, their conduct over looted funds undermine the objectives of those protocols.
As noted by the Vice President, the challenges exist despite the numerous international organs established to fight international money laundering. As he noted: “despite numerous mutual legal assistance treaties and conventions, it is obvious that we are not making the sort of progress we expect to see.” He went on: “It is unconscionable to have stolen funds in a bank within the jurisdiction of an FATF (Financial Action Task Force) country and to have to go through a rigorous obstacle to retrieve the funds and even when such funds are to be returned after several years, humiliating conditions are attached.”
Nigeria has been unlucky with some of its leaders with respect to public corruption. For instance, during the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha, humongous national resources were stolen and siphoned out of the country by the rogue regime, through one guise or the other. Again, some influential Nigerian leaders have perfected the practice of using anonymous corporate entities to salt away the nation’s resources to European countries or other countries that operate opaque tax regimes, in their effort to hide their ill-gotten wealth and avoid payment of taxes. Considering that kleptomaniacs and rogue regimes are not the exclusive preserve of Africans, there is the need for a global approach to find a solution to this menace.
The view of the Nigerian government as expressed by the Vice President that: “FATF countries must ensure the smooth repatriation of proceeds of corruption to the economies from where they were stolen,” should be made international economic policy and pursued with vigour at all international fora, by all nations. It is double standards when western democracies promote FATF to fight funding of terrorist activities, but create safe-havens for Third World elites to hide the stolen common wealth of their people.
As observed by the Vice President: “the Panama Papers and now the Paradise papers clearly illustrate the global scale and spread of this problem (dangers posed by anonymous corporate ownership).” As he correctly posited: “We cannot have anonymous ownership of companies, trusts and other arrangements designed to cover ownership of assets and at the same time expect optimal results from anti-money laundering measures.”
