President Muhammadu Buhari has called for the setting up of an international anti-corruption agency to fight global corruption.President Buhari made this call in London on Wednesday at the international anti-corruption summit being attended by government leaders, business community and the civil society.
The Nigerian leader called for the setting up of the agency because of what he described as the tedious, costly and time consuming process of repatriating proceeds of corruption.
”Our experience has been that repatriation of corrupt proceeds is very tedious, time consuming, costly and entails more than just the signing of bilateral or multilateral agreements.
This should not be the case as there are provisions in the appropriate United Nations Convention that require countries to return assets to countries from where it is proven that they were illegitimately acquired.
”I therefore, call for the establishment of an international anti-corruption infrastructure that will monitor, trace and facilitate the return of such assets to their countries of origin.
It is important to stress that the repatriation of identified stolen funds should be done without delay or preconditions,” Buhari stated.
The Nigerian president also sought the designation of oil theft as an international crime similar to the trade in ”blood diamonds”
”We, therefore, call on the international community to designate oil theft as an international crime similar to the trade in “blood diamonds”, as it constitutes an imminent and credible threat to the economy and stability of oil-producing countries like Nigeria.
The critical stakeholders here present can lead the charge in this regard,” he stated.
