President Muhammadu Buhari has said that a major cause of insecurity in Africa is the free flow of illicit funds on the continent.
Speaking at the 16th Conference of the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa on Thursday in Abuja, the President called on the intelligence services to trace and block such funds and the sponsors of terror activities.
He put the estimate of such illegal funding of crime and outflows from Africa around $60billion annually.
“Frankly, we may never know the true extent of the damage. Estimates, however, suggest that African countries lose over 60 billion US dollars annually due to illicit financial outflows, a staggering amount for a continent in dire need of development finance.
“Corroborating this figure, a United Nations Report on ‘Illicit Financial Flows and the Problem of Net Resource Transfers from Africa: 1980-2009,’ observed that during the period 1980 to 2009 between $1.2 trillion and $1.4 trillion was taken out of Africa.
“This figure is half of the current Gross Domestic Products of all the countries of Africa,”, a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, quoted Buhari as telling the attendees.