President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed that Nigeria lost an estimated 157.5 billion dollars to illicit financial flows between 2003 and 2012.
The president’s spokesman, Mr Femi Adesina, said the President disclosed this in an address to the High-Level National Side-Event organized by the African Union Development Agency and New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
The event was organized in collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Wednesday in New York, on the margins of the 74th United Nations General Assembly.
The theme of the event was; “Promotion of International Cooperation to Combat Illicit Financial Flows and Strengthen Good Practices on Assets Recovery and Return to Foster Sustainable Development.”
While quoting from the 2014 Global Financial Integrity Report, the Nigerian leader noted that such massive loss of assets, resulted in dearth of resources to fund public services or to alleviate poverty in the country.
Meanwhile for the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Tijani Bande, the meeting is to take stock of efforts and explore opportunities for international collaboration.
The meeting was attended by the Presidents of Zambia and Ethiopia.