The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ola Olukayode, has urged the National Assembly to speedily pass the Unexplained Wealth Bill.
Mr Olukayode made the appeal at the ongoing National Conference on Public Accounts and Fiscal Governance, organised by the Senate and House of Representatives Public Accounts Committees on Thursday.
“Help me pass the Unexplained Wealth Bill, I’ve been begging for the past one year. This same bill was thrown out in the last Assembly. If we don’t make individuals accountable for what they have, we’ll never get it right,” he pleaded.
The bill seeks to go after Nigerians with no known source of wealth or with illicit means of gathering wealth.
Speaking at the event, he said the anti-graft has mounting evidences of people living above their means and there was no clear-cut law holding them accountable.
“In the last three weeks, we started a commission-wide investigation into the extractive industry, particularly the oil and gas sector. What we have discovered is mind-boggling.
“We have only just opened the books. So much more corruption is to be unraveled. If this is what we’re seeing at the surface, imagine what lies beneath.
“There is a very strong connection between the mismanagement of our resources and insecurity.
“When you look at banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, trace it back, and you will find a pattern of corrupt practices and diversion of funds that were meant to improve people’s lives.
“Someone has worked in a ministry for 20 years. We calculate their entire salary and allowances. Then we find five property , two in Maitama, three in Asokoro. Yet, we’re told to go and prove a predicate offence before we can act. That is absurd,” he said.
The EFCC boss urged all Nigerians to put aside creed, politics and ethnic sentiments to block revenue leakage and save the economy of the country.
Mr Olukayode also said that Nigerians should not fail to take advantage presented by President Bola Tinubu’s administration to block revenue leakage as it could spell doom for the country.
According to him, no amount of capacity will be able to recover half of the resources stolen from Nigeria as many host countries are not willing to repatriate.
He said that the best option was to prevent corruption saying that failure to do so, corruption would kill the country.