EFCC To Release Names of Past and Present Looters - Ribadu: The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it will soon publish names of past and present leaders that had looted the nation’s treasury and stashed away the ill-gotten wealth in foreign accounts, estimated at $400billion.
Chairman of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, who said this in Lagos at a lecture organised by the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), explained that the disclosure would enhance the commission’s campaign against corrupt politicians who were waiting in the wings to take power in 2007.
“Over $400 billion oil money has been stolen by bad leaders. We are going to trace the activities of past and present leaders and publish the names of those leaders who have laundered money, their accounts and the names of the banks where the money is being kept.
“We will also close the account of those politicians who have laundered money and converted it for their political ambitions. This will stop bad people from coming into power”, he threatened.
He said the commission would monitor closely the use of revenue allocated to the three tiers of government to ensure that the money was not laundered.
According to Ribadu, what most of the governors get from the Federation Account monthly is enough to develop their states but regretted that instead of applying the funds for the good of the public, they disappeared into private bank accounts.
He said: “There are a lot of cases of government officials who connived with banks to steal government money. This money is being converted and transferred to other countries.
"Over 80 percent of Nigeria's money has gone to waste. This is a country with massive resources but people are suffering simply because we have poor management.”
He said his commission would surprise corrupt leaders. “We respect people but there is no reason why people should respect a thief. If the leaders reduce themselves to cheap goat, we will discipline them,” he stated.
Maintaining that the commission was ready to deal decisively with bank officials who connived with government officials to steal money, Ribadu disclosed that EFCC would within two weeks take up a Managing Director of one of the big banks in the country.
Though he refused to disclose the name of the managing director, he nonetheless vowed to remove all fraudsters from the banking sector.
“We are working to reduce corruption in the country. If we clean the banking sector, we may have helped to clean other sectors”, he said.
The EFCC chairman noted that there were some bank officials that were dedicated to the convicted former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, that were helping him to launder his looted funds.
He said these were the type of bank officials that often went directly to government officials to assist them to transfer stolen money.
Ribadu also spoke on the plight of the Niger Delta region and blamed it largely on the corrupt leadership from the area.
According to him, "If you go to the Niger Delta, you will see what community leaders are doing with the money. One of the governors of the Niger Delta that was arrested was discovered to have close to N50 billion in his foreign account".
Speaking on 'Combating Money Laundering in Emerging Economies: Nigeria as Case Study', Ribadu listed the challenges facing the commission to include attitudinal fixations and societal tolerance of corrupt conduct, insufficient commitment by all tiers of government, attempt to blackmail and politicise the work of EFCC, constitutional constraints and lack of cooperation by some countries in loot recovery.
Even with these challenges, he said, the commission in the past three years had arrested and investigated over 5,000 people for various crimes within the purview of the commission, adding that over 350 cases were at advanced stages of prosecution in several courts in Nigeria.
He said: "We have recorded 82 convictions for corruption, money laundering, advance fee fraud, pipeline vandalism and terrorism with some of them involving top government functionaries.
"We have facilitated the seizure and confiscation of assets worth over $5 billion and refunded to government agencies, private sector institutions and victims of crime around the world. The fight against money laundering constitute a ground for securing debt relief from the Paris Club."
The EFCC boss maintained that the commission was going beyond cleansing the economic environment, to actively working to prevent known corrupt politicians from holding power.
He said the recent delisting from the FATF list was a clear indication that Nigeria was doing everything possible to take money laundering head-on.
According to him, Nigeria lost an estimated $12 billion annually since its placement on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) list in June 2001.
Ribadu, who commended the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, said the commission would not have recorded any success if the President had not given it his full support.
He said: "Nobody is 100 percent perfect but Obasanjo is above average. He has never asked us to leave anybody because they are his friends. We have arrested his close friends, governors, ministers, others but he has not asked us to leave anybody.
“After Obasanjo, the next person we should celebrate in Nigeria is Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala. She has done wonderfully well for this country. When the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) came to Nigeria, they were surprised at what we have done in the country. If not for Okonjo Iweala, it would have been so impossible to get it in Nigeria.”
