Corruption in Nigeria is a major problem which has a devastating human cost. Without doubt, corruption kills people and traps millions more in poverty. It also undermines the global economy and threatens national security, growth and progress.
The largely hidden truth is that commercial banks in Nigeria play an integral role in enabling this unpatriotic act. Corrupt officials need somewhere to hide stolen money. Yet while laws and regulations apply which require banks to do a range of checks to detect the proceeds of corruption, many banks fail to uphold them. As result they are leaving the door wide open for corrupt people to launder their funds.
Banks and Dirty Money reveals the skewed incentives which lie at the root of this problem. It shows that the best solution is for senior executives to be held personally responsible when banks break the rules, and that without this banks will continue to enable corruption and the harm that results.
Corruption destroys livelihoods, economies and democracies. It helps keep poor countries poor, encourages conflict and instability and leads to fragile environments getting wrecked.
None of this happens by accident. Corrupt politicians and other criminals need a system to help them move money around the world, a bank to handle their stolen money and bribe payments, and anonymous companies and trusts that allow them to hide their identity.
Currently too many banks aid and abet criminal behaviour. Many violate the laws designed to stop them taking ill-gotten gains, which in turn aren’t properly enforced by regulators. In some countries, legal loopholes mean it can be possible for banks to handle ill-gotten gains without technically breaking any rules.
Global Witness has investigated lots of examples of banks doing business with corrupt regimes and other criminals. Even when the rules are properly enforced, banks are usually let off with fines that can be chalked up to the cost of doing business, with the financial impact usually passed onto investors and customers. Senior individuals with oversight of breaches are rarely held to account. This means that corrupt politicians can access the global financial system with almost impunity, and banks can make great profits at considerable social and environmental cost for the rest of us.
It is on this note that I call on the Muhammadu Buhari administration to checkmate the illicit activities of these commercial banks.
Senior executives should face personal consequences, including criminal penalties in the most serious cases, when their banks handle suspected funds and facilitate large scale crime on their watch. In addition, One Love Foundation is calling for an end to the anonymously owned companies, Pastors and Imams that allow the criminal and corrupt to move dirty money through the international system undetected through them.
Furthermore, the illegal charges and deductions by Nigeria banks should be stopped. They charge as high as 30% in their interest rate thereby denying the middle class any opportunity of benefiting from their banks.
Customers are easily denied loans and support in Favour of corrupt politicians and religious leaders like Pastors and Imams who swindle unsuspecting and poor Nigerians. This is unacceptable and shameful!
Chief Patrick Osagie Eholor is the Global President of One Love Foundation.
