The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal yesterday pleaded with foreign countries to help fight corruption in Nigeria by legislating against receiving and keeping rogue money.
He said that such legislations would criminalise the acceptance of deposits from Nigerians whose source of money could not be ascertained.
Receiving a delegation of a Non Governmental Organisation, Kuramo Foundation, led by Dr. Mrs Jumoke Oduwole, the speaker noted that loose fund transfer policies of developed nations was in large part encouraging public treasury looting in the country.
The NGO had presented to the speaker a draft Civil Asset Forfeiture Bill which seeks to enforce repatriation and transparent use of recovered funds.
Tambuwal said, “in cases where our foreign friends pay lip service to this, then they are condoning corruption because our public office holders will need where to keep their loot. They should legislate to stop the receipt of such money.”
The speaker said that, “the developed countries should stop co-operating, assisting, aiding and abetting corrupt public office holders who take stolen money from Nigeria out for keeping. They should legislate and ban any bank or institution for accepting such money. This will go a long way in reducing corruption in Nigeria and by the time they do that they will be helping our country. By that gesture the act of corruption will be reduced considerably.
“Our friends in developed countries, as it were, are paying lip service to our own effort in fighting corruption. It is worrisome the way they tolerate and condone this practice in a developing economy such as ours because when our public officers loot our treasury they hardly keep them within, they take them out of Nigeria,” he said.
LEADERSHIP recalls that such legal framework exists against rogue diamond as a means of checking insurgences in Sierra Leone and Liberia.