The chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, has urged the National Assembly to pass the Unexplained Wealth Bill, which has been pending since the Ninth Assembly.
Mr Olukayode made the appeal at the National Conference on Public Accounts and Fiscal Governance, organised by the Senate and House of Representatives Public Accounts Committees.
“In the last three weeks, we started a commission-wide investigation into the extractive industry, particularly the oil and gas sector. What we have discovered is mind-boggling.
“We have only just opened the books. So much more corruption is to be unravelled. If this is what we’re seeing at the surface, imagine what lies beneath. There is a very strong connection between the mismanagement of our resources and insecurity,” said Mr Olukoyede.
The anti-graft chief added, “When you look at banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, trace it back, and you will find a pattern of corrupt practices and diversion of funds that were meant to improve people’s lives.
“Help me pass the Unexplained Wealth Bill. I’ve been begging for the past one year. This same bill was thrown out in the last Assembly. If we don’t make individuals accountable for what they have, we’ll never get it right.
“Someone has worked in a ministry for 20 years. We calculate their entire salary and allowances. Then we found five properties, two in Maitama, three in Asokoro. Yet we’re told to go and prove a predicate offence before we can act. That is absurd.”
The EFCC boss urged Nigerians to set aside their creed, politics, and ethnic sentiments to block revenue leakage and save the country’s economy.
Mr Olukoyede said that Nigerians should not fail to take advantage of the opportunities presented by President Bola Tinubu’s administration to block revenue leakage, as it could spell doom for the country.
According to him, no amount of capacity will be able to recover half of the resources stolen from Nigeria, as many host countries are unwilling to repatriate them.
He said that the best option was to prevent corruption, stating that failure to do so would lead to Nigeria’s demise due to corruption.
(NAN)
