Nigerian Current News, Headlines, Interviews, Politics, Business, Sports, Opinions, Special Report, Art, Nigeria, Africa, Foreign News
By Patrick Aigbokhan
Africa Secretariat, a United Kingdom-based group, has accused treasury looters in Nigeria of stashing away over £400bn worth of the country’s money in Europe, Asia and America
Mr. Ben Oguntala, Coordinator of the group, who made the accusation in a report on Friday,said that his group had suggested ways of recovering the looted funds to President Buhari.
Already, President Muhammadu Buhari is currently seeking the assistance of the United States and European countries to recover looted Nigerian funds kept in foreign banks.
Oguntala said, “The image President Buhari is projecting is his promise to fight corruption. He cannot do this alone and it is for this reason that we have sent the President our proposal for addressing corruption.
“There is over £400bn worth of Nigerian money being fraudulently held in Europe, Asia and America. When we met with the President on his visit to London (earlier this year), he asked us to find out how Nigerians in the Diaspora can contribute to the development of Nigeria and we see fighting corruption as a cornerstone of that change that Nigeria is leading across Africa.
“The perpetrators thought they got away from the Nigerian law but now, finally, the law can be extended to bring them to account.”
The group leader said an anti-corruption agency which will be established in Britain has been suggested to Buhari.
“The Nigerian Corruption Amnesty Commission proposal has been suggested and submitted to the President. It will be headed by one of the most talented lawyers in criminal law in the world. The commission will be answerable directly to the President and will be held in the UK, using the UK and European Union laws to target perpetrators who thought they were out of the Nigerian legal jurisdiction,” he said.
According to Oguntala, the proposed commission would invoke the powers of UK’s Bribery and Corruption Act of 2010 and its EU and US equivalent, in collaboration with the Serious Fraud Office and the Metropolitan Police and international fraud agencies that already have names of those that defrauded Nigeria on their radar.
The NCAC will also allow Nigerians in the Diaspora and their country to give evidence to the commission.
Oguntala added, “Using social media and the Internet, witnesses will be able to give evidence from any location across the world, providing evidence of corruption they know. The commission will also give a window for perpetrators to confess and return their loots or face the book being thrown at them.
“As part of the confession they give, the commission will demand details of how they carried out the corruption and the information will be used to plug the loophole in the commensurate sources in Nigeria to ensure we prevent such graft from happening again.”
