Mar.29, 2010

Director General, Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), Dr. Abdullahi Shehu, has stressed the need for the country to place more effort in fighting corruption, just as he emphasized the need for journalists to be objective and professional in their reporting.

Shehu who made this call  at a one-day interactive session with executives and editors of media organisations, in Lagos lamented the difficulty in prosecuting politically exposed persons, saying they are powerful and have money to get the best lawyers.

Shehu who spoke on, ‘Overview of Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Systems’, noted that money laundering undermines the political system, peace and security of a country and that some banks have also collapsed as a result of such activities.

He decried a situation where people perceive the country as a bastion of corruption, saying the scourge should be critically analysed so as to know how to fight it.

“We do not just look at corruption itself, but we look at the potential causes, so that we will have the dynamics to fight the scourge. No society has eliminated corruption easily, it can only be minimised,” he argued

He said since his organisation had been given a mandate to deal with money laundering, financial terrorism, terrorists acts, it will collaborate with other international organisations to better safeguard the economy and national security.

The DG who also spoke about trans-border legislation, noted that, “there are many challenges in declaring cash at the borders. If someone is declaring money, there should be a procedure and we expect that there should be a procedure which should have a legal protection.”

Shehu stressed the need for the country to sustain the efforts aimed at combating corruption, saying, “there is corruption everywhere, solving it is a process. Nigeria has demonstrated the will to fight it in various ways. It is not possible to solve the problems in one day. We have to empower the agencies that combats money laundering.”