We will recover West Africa’s stolen assets with interest – Agency

The Network of National Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa (NACIWA), has vowed to recover all the region’s stolen assets taken to the western world with interest paid on them.

The President of NACIWA, Mr Olanipekun Olukoyede said this in an interview with newsmen at the 6th Annual General Assembly of NACIWA in Abuja

NACIWA is an anti-corruption network made up of ECOWAS member countries while Olukoyode, its incumbent President, is the Chairman of Nigeria anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC)

Speaking at the conference themed, ” “Implementing the ECOWAS Protocol against Corruption towards Strengthening Institutions for Regional Unity.” Olukoyede , said the western world would be made to pay interest on recovered stolen assets domiciled in their countries.

He said NACIWA was going to engage the operationalisation of its Protocol on anti-corruption and asset recovery within the region to achieve the goal.

He noted with concerns, the existing United Nations and European Union protocols which do not address the peculiar need of Africa, especially West African sub region.

According to him, the crux of the engagement is the operationalisation of the protocol on anti-corruption within the ECOWAS sub -region.

“This is going to bring collaboration and integration amongst us to come as a common force to fight corruption.

“One of the highlights of this engagement is the development of protocol for asset recovery.

“We’ve been using the existing UN protocol and the EU protocol which has come on board, but we just felt that those protocols didn’t address some peculiar needs of our sub region.

He said the assembly will use the instrumentality of the ECOWAS Protocol to address the complex issues of outflow of assets and resources out of Africa and repatriation as well as other areas not covered by the UN and EU protocols

“There are wide areas, the current UN protocol does not address, because they are peculiar to Africa.

“For example, there are some artifacts that have been taken to some museums within the western world, U.S., European countries, and all of that.

“For decades, if not centuries, people have been going into these museums, paying to look at these artifacts,”

“`What happened to the proceeds that they’ve generated from these artifacts over the years? So, it is not just for them to return the artifacts,” he said.

Olukoyede said they were also going to demand what happened to the proceeds as well as interest paid on some of the money that have been sitting in banks in some western countries.

Dr Musa Aliyu, SAN, the Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) said corruption must be stamped out of the region through collective effort.

He corroborated Olukoyede on the need to come together in the fight against corruption in the sub-region.

The ICPC boss said, in addition to artifacts, they must focus on how to detect other assets that were stolen from Africa and the ECOWAS.”

Mr Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, in his remarks called for collective effort in fighting corruption in the region.

Musah noted that the EFCC had been a pace setter in fighting the menace in the region since its inception, and tangible results had been achieved through it.

He said that other member states had also followed after the EFCC step in the fight against the menace in the region.

“As we have heard during the presentation, over 80 billion dollars annually flows out of the region illegally; money that can be used to protect the livelihoods of our populations.

“Terrorism is also a network between foreign interests and local accomplices. These are difficult tasks, which require integrated approach by all concerned for us to effectively combat them,” he said.

Musa stressed that all hands must be on deck to design integrated approach to tackle the challenges.