The Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has said that Nigeria requires the support
of the International community to facilitate the speedy recovery of her looted
funds for national development.
He also said that effective collaboration
between the Nigerian anti-graft agencies and their foreign counterparts would
aid other laudable actions of the government in the fight against corruption.
Speaking at the weekend during the maiden
meeting of International Corruption Hunters' Network at Transcorp Hilton,
Abuja, he lauded the leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission, EFCC, for taking advantage of the networking and knowledge transfer
opportunities provided by the group to further strengthen its
institutional processes.
He urged the group to continually avail
its members of emerging top-notch strategies and methods in the fight against
corruption.
Dogara, who spoke through the
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes,
Kayode Oladele, said: " I have no doubt in my mind that this meeting
will further enhance peer learning, fruitful exchange and adaptation of best
practices among members of the Network in areas such as investigative
techniques, preventive advice, monitoring of the compliance standards of
bad entities as well as the law enforcement agencies. The timeliness of this
meeting cannot be over-emphasized for a number of reasons. First, it came
at a time when the Nigerian government has launched a historic offensive against
corruption. At the Vanguard of their integrity crusade is President Muhammed
Buhari and other senior government officials who, through their commitment to
the virtues of integrity, rekindled the confidence of Nigerians in the institution
of government."
Dogara further assured the group of the
continuous support of the House in its quest to promote cross-border
coordination and peer learning in the fight against corruption.
He, therefore, urged the group
to think out of the box and look at the deeper context of the fight against
corruption by supporting anti-corruption agencies in Africa to become more
effective in preventing and prosecuting corrupt practices.
Earlier, in his welcome address, the
acting Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Mustafa Magu, hinged the success so
far recorded by the Commission on the capacity of its workforce.
Magu, who expressed gratitude to the
group for choosing Abuja as the host of its first Sub-Saharan Africa meeting
and the EFCC as the host agency, further said the Commission placed
emphasis on training and re-training to build its competence and institute
professionalism in its activities.
According to him, "Giving our
prosecutors and investigators cutting - edge training cannot be achieved
through classroom situations. Shared field experiences being offered by the
Network enable those who have already passed through peculiar situations to
relate to such experiences across restrictive national boundaries and
jurisdictions to colleagues currently facing similar on- the- job challenges.
This has been shown over time to be more impactful than many of the training
programmes we send our investigators to."
The EFCC boss also urged the group not to
discontinue its support to the Commission, saying it had added a lot of
value to its activities, particularly "now that corruption has grown even
more virulent since the formation of the " Network. "
" It is only in acting
together that we could be able to break the obnoxious network of corrupt
elements and their sponsors, both locally and internationally, " he
added.
Magu further stated that no one else had a
greater stake in the success on corruption war than the victims themselves.
" The long suffering people of
Nigeria held down for decades by the rampant greed of corrupt public office
holders have signed up for the war against corruption personally led by
President Muhammed Buhari, " he said.
In her brief remark, Eva Joly,
a member of the European Union Parliament, expressed gratitude to the
EFCC for its support and the guest speakers for honouring the invitation to the
meeting.
In attendance at the two-day meeting were
the Norwegian Ambassador, Mr Rolf Ree; Borno State Chief
Judge, Justice Kashim Zannah ; Mr Dotun Oloko, a social commentator
and anti-corruption campaigner and Prof. Bolaji Owosanoye, Executive
Secretary, Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-corruption in
Nigeria, among others.
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