Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has predicted that the fight against corruption will continue to get more difficult daily.
He said it would get to a point that many people would become discouraged to stand up against corruption.
Osinbajo said this in his address at the
20th anniversary regional webinar organised by the Independent Corrupt
Practices and other offences Commission.
His Senior Special Assistant on Media
and Publicity, Laolu Akande, made copies of his remarks available to
journalists on Tuesday.
The webinar was titled, “Combating corruption and illicit financial flows: New measures and strategies.”
The Vice-President said, “The fight
against corruption is nuanced and hydra-headed, it is not going to get
easier by the day; as a matter of fact, it will get more difficult by
the day and many will become discouraged in standing up against
corruption.
“But it is our duty both as individuals
and institutions, especially in developing countries where corruption
has such a devastating effect, to ensure that we prioritise the fight
against corruption and continually devise new ways and new approaches
even as the hydra-headed problem itself continues to manifest in
different ways.”
Osinbajo said the regime of the
President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had been
demonstrating the political will and support for anti-corruption
measures, which, he said, had afforded all anti-corruption agencies in
the country the latitude to do their work without interference.
Osinbajo said the theme of the webinar
was only a reminder that corruption remained a scourge militating
against the country’s development aspirations
He noted, “Over the years, massive
public resources and assets have been directly stolen, diverted,
deliberately misapplied to gratify corrupt tendencies, stashed in
foreign jurisdictions or mired in and susceptible to pilferage by the
inequitable and unjust international economic system that continues to
undermine the social and economic development aspirations of poor
countries, especially from Africa.
“Without effectively combating
corruption and IFFs and promoting international cooperation for asset
recovery and asset return, Africa cannot achieve the Sustainable
Development Goals. Goal 16 of the SDGs is devoted to corruption.”
He said breaking the wall of secret
corporate ownership was crucial, especially in developing countries,
because secrecy around corporate ownership was implicated in the
countries’ underdevelopment.
Osinbajo added, “Although anonymous
companies are not always illegal, nevertheless secrecy provides a
convenient cover for criminality and corruption.
“Our experience in Nigeria, as in other
developing countries, is that anonymous corporate ownership covers a
multitude of sins, including conflict of interests, corruption, tax
evasion, money laundering, and even terrorism financing.”
The Vice-President disclosed that
Nigeria was in the process of amending its corporate law to mandate the
disclosure of beneficial interest in a company’s shares and prescribe
punitive measures for failure of disclosure.
He added, “We must make corruption
expensive for those who engage in it and send the unequivocal message
that corruption simply does not pay.
“It is the unenviable but noble task of
the ICPC and other anti-corruption agencies to make corruption
unattractive to its disciples and facilitate new approaches to stemming
IFFS and promoting asset recovery and return.”
Osinbajo added that while many citizens
are interested in the fight against grand corruption, they also want to
see action in what would be regarded as petty corruption.
He added, “We must protect, even more, whistle-blowers – persons who come forward with information against corruption.
“We must protect those who are ready to
fight against corruption and who are prepared to do so without
necessarily disclosing their identities and even those who are ready to
disclose their identities.
“The thing that we must take note of is that corruption fights back. And it is fighting back and it has the resources to do so.”
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