Oscarline Onwuemenyi
27 December 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – Nigeria has challenged the global community to repatriate all illicit financial flows from Africa as part of international cooperation to combat illicit financial flows and foster sustainable development.
Spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the United Nations, Mr. Bolaji Akinremi, said the global community should no longer turn blind eye to the menace, which, according to him, had been well articulated and adopted in several reports.
Akinremi, who led the Nigerian delegation during the UN recent adoption of a Nigeria-sponsored resolution to combat illicit financial flows, regretted the destabilising effects of this on the development of societies, especially developing countries and the slow pace of the recovery and return of stolen assets.
He warned that proceeds of corruption, tax evasion, transnational bribery and other forms of illicit flows to requesting states, would continue to be “a wound on the conscience of the global community”.
He called for setting up of an intergovernmental body to properly coordinate the various disjointed mandates in different bodies, on the different dimensions of illicit financial flows, and develop appropriate instruments for their recovery and return.
According to him, most developing countries are yearning for this kind of body that would bring relief to the frustration they currently face in combating illicit financial flows.