A group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has called for the prosecution of top officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria and other bank executives involved in the $2.1 billion arms deal.
In a statement on Tuesday by its Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, the group insisted that the bank officials should be prosecuted for their complicity in the matter.
The group announced that it had petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission to conduct a joint investigation of the bank officials.
The statement read “SERAP believes that the CBN cannot absolve itself of complicity in the stealing of over N70bn and that this large-scale corruption would have been prevented had the CBN been alive to its supervisory role in the implementation of anti-money laundering standards within its systems and in other banks.
“SERAP believes that the efforts to identify responsibility for the heinous crimes committed against the Nigerian soldiers and their families should include the role that banks and financial institutions played by aiding, abetting or failing to exercise due diligence to prevent the stolen funds from being stashed in their institutions, and thereby exacerbated the conflict in the North-East.
“SERAP is seriously concerned about the CBN’s ability to tackle high-level official corruption especially given that it was the CBN that facilitated, aided and abetted the emptying of the public treasury by the late Gen. Sani Abacha.
“The CBN should have learnt from this experience and not allow, without questions, the withdrawal of billions of naira within a short period of time by former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), and former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
“Unless the CBN shows greater level of leadership and proactive supervisory authority, and takes its responsibilities seriously, corrupt politicians and high-ranking government officials will continue to find it easy to steal from the public treasury.”