Mr Mathew Page is a former United States intelligence community’s top expert on Nigeria and he has an information that Nigerians will like to hear.
The nation’s treasury has been looted by many past leaders to the extent that incoming administration (presidents or governors of states) will always tell Nigerians that the treasury was empty when they took over.
Where does these funds go to?
Mr Page knows.
He also knows why corruption is growing in Nigeria and why these countries have continued to welcome looted funds from Nigeria.
He says the U.S. and the United Kingdom are the biggest recipients of funds looted from Nigeria.
Page, a senior policymaker at the White House, State Department, Defense Department for more than a decade, gave a report on Friday about how these funds find their way abroad.
His submission was presented at a roundtable organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a civil society organisation in a paper he entitled "From Maitama to Mayfair: How International Financial and Property Markets Fuel Corruption in Nigeria".
The guest speaker noted that current banking, property and corporate laws in the U.S. and U.K. did not only lack adequate safeguards, but were designed to facilitate illicit financial flows from Nigeria.
"Nigeria’s kleptocrats deftly use both Nigerian banks and the international financial system, especially anonymous shell corporations and offshore tax havens, to launder stolen public funds and stash them overseas, often in the form of high-end real estate in London, Dubai, New York, and California.
"Despite possessing robust discretionary powers, the US and UK rarely deny visas to corrupt officials or report cases of suspected corruption or unexplained wealth back to law enforcement agencies back home.
"The UK is one of a small number of global financial centres that play a key role in processing substantial levels of corrupt capital," he said.
Citing Transparency International, he said an estimated 57 billion pounds was laundered within and through the UK in 2013 alone, representing 3.6 per cent of that year’s national real GDP.
