Nigeria has also featured in the list of Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories as placed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in June 2001. Following the report, the United States issued an advisory to inform banks and other financial institutions operating in the United States of deficiencies in the anti-money laundering regime of Nigeria and warned US banks to give enhanced scrutiny to all financial transactions emanating from Nigeria or going to, or through it.

Nigeria ranks one hundred and forty-six out of one hundred and sixty three countries in Transparency International Perception Index. This result though still very bad is an improvement on the previous ranking which for years placed Nigeria as the most corrupt and second most corrupt country in the world.

CAUSES

The high rate of financial crimes in Nigeria is a product of the unhealthy metamorphosis of the Nigerian Nation since its independence from British rule. Oil wealth in Nigeria came with a lot of excitement and expectations. Sooner than it came, the morale of Nigerians went low as politicians took a firm hold of the enormous wealth and converted the blessing to a curse. This curse has continued to plague the Nigerian Nation ever since. From one government to the other, from one coup d ‘tat to the next, Nigeria journeyed through perilous parts. The consequences became the total erosion of traditional values, morality, hard work and the institutionalisation of corruption leading to poverty in a country with plenty.

“In fact, crime in Nigeria more than other places is a symptom of decades of misrule which has effectively killed off the middle class and kept the people socially backwards for sometimes. It is equally a cry of the hopeless; which the government misinterprets as pathology. It is only a symptom and the real pathology is a series of governance which has pushed the people into the quadrangles of consolidated poverty and ignorance, where there only care is survival”. 5

Emmanuel Ogbunwezeh in his article “EFCC and Cyber Crimes. The true lessons!” Posted in www.nigeriavillagesquare.com on the 25th of October, 2006 submitted that the problem with crime in Nigeria is more deep seated and goes into the very heart of the Nigerian leadership and governance system. He continued that the Nigerian state has been absent-minded about the welfare of the citizens over the past four decades. And successive Nigerian governments repeatedly missed opportunities to grasp the heritage of lessons which the sociological discipline has availed humanity. Many a Nigerian government failed to learn that the provision and guarantee of the basic necessities like life, assured source of bread, and basic maslownian needs, coupled with an efficient justice delivery system have always been the secure guarantee against the proliferation of crime in any society. The failure of the Nigerian state in guaranteeing the welfare of its citizens is the greatest of crime in Nigeria.

With the Nigerian state compromised, rising poverty set in despite the country’s relative oil wealth. Today, Nigeria’s basic social indicators place it among the 20 poorest countries in the world. 80 – 90million Nigerians out of the estimated 130million people live in poverty. Her per capital income is currently 20% less than the 1975 level in spite of the fact that it has earned over $300billion from oil exports since the mid 70s.6    continue ....next page