Osinbajo calls for united action against corruption

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday called for a united against corruption and illicit follows especially from Africa.

This is even as he said corruption was responsible for the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria’s north east zone, adding that the vice has caused untold humanitarian disasters, promoted the death of 20,000 while displacing 2 million persons.

Osinbajo stated this while speaking at the ongoing meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD’s) Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum in Paris, France.

He also said that illicit financial flows from Africa to other parts of the world were on the increase and had cost the continent
a capital flight of USD50 billion annually.

He said: “There is now hardly any credible opposition to the notion that corruption and Illicit financial flows constitute perhaps the gravest challenge to development. And this is especially true of developing countries.

“Besides, we have seen in Nigeria, in recent years, how corruption directly fueled the terrorist insurgency in the North-East.

And how in turn that has led to one of gravest humanitarian disasters in the world; 20,000 fatalities and 2 million people displaced.
“Also the adverse implications for education, healthcare, social services, infrastructure and indeed quality of life no longer require
making a case.

“Corruption and illicit financial flows are different. But they really must be twinned. This is because for practical purposes it is an eminently more sensible approach to treat most of the sources of illicit financial flows as corrupt activity, within a broader use of the term.

“It is also clear that most economies ravaged by corruption, usually-both as a cause and consequence-do have institutions that are too weak to fight corruption and illicit financial flows. International collaboration is therefore the smartest and most effective approach to apprehend and deter perpetrators, and ensure restitution of stolen assets. ”

Of particular note on the continental level is the ground breaking work of the Thabo Mbeki Panel on illicit financial flows from Africa. The initiative which was sponsored by a joint commission of the AU and the ECA, alarmed at the prospect that most African States despite
earnings and official development assistance, would still not meet MGD targets in 2015, noted that Africa loses USD50billion annually, in illicit financial flows.

“The Panel’s far reaching conclusions and recommendations again underscore the overwhelming importance of global collaboration, especially to bridge the huge capacity gap between the large corporations and organized crime identified as the foremost perpetrators and facilitators of corrupt activity in and illicit flows from Africa. Yet more needs to be done.”

Osinbajo noted that as a country committed to stamping out corruption, Nigeria has mapped out some measures to fight it.
Some of these measures, he said, included establishing a seven man Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, the Anti-Corruption and Criminal Justice Reform fund with the support of three international Development Partners; Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and the Open Society West Africa, the Whistleblower initiative and signing of several bilateral mutual legal assistance
treaties on collaboration on financial crimes and corruption with numerous countries.