Dogara seeks return of looted funds

SPEAKER of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has called on the international community, especially Western nations, to help facilitate the return of all the billions of naira looted from Nigeria.

A statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs Turaki Hassan, yesterday, said Dogara made the appeal at the close of the Fourth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in New York.

The Speaker said Western nations have both moral and legal obligation to Nigeria and other African countries to ensure that monies stolen from Africa are repatriated.

He said the return of such funds would help create jobs for millions of jobless young men and women and ultimately reduce to the barest minimum the surge of migrants to Europe from Africa.

Dogara, who further appealed to heads of parliaments from the West to enact legislations that will block the movement of stolen funds from Africa to their home countries, said as presiding officers of the Legislature, Speakers of Western parliaments should put pressure on their governments to return such looted funds to Nigeria.