The Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has called for legislation against unexplained wealth, as a way of checking the criminal activities of treasury looters in the country.
Speaking at a recent event in Ogun State, he said: ”The issue of unexplained wealth is not a local issue. There are jurisdictional legislations across the world to tackle it.
Till date, countries of the world are faced with criminalities emanating from money laundering practices and illicit funds. This circumstance led to the promulgation of Unexplained Wealth Orders, UWOs that came into force in 2018.
Several countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Mauritius and African countries like Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean have come up with UWO. Nigeria is yet to come up with a national legislation on it.
In Nigeria today, unexplained wealth has become practical means of tracing, identifying, investigating and prosecuting corr¥ption cases.
As an anti-graft agency, suspects of any economic and financial crimes are usually required to declare their assets in the course of investigation. The basis for this is to properly establish their true asset base and their linkage or otherwise to any act of corruption.
Owing to the absence of legislation on the issue of unexplained wealth, the EFCC continues to rely on provisions of Section 7 of its Establishment Act to handle it.
Nations are rapidly settling for non-conviction-based asset forfeiture. The reason for this is simple because unexplained wealth can only be beneficial to the state if they are forfeited…(continue reading on next slide.)
