Corruption and economic crime in Nigeria: Social and economic perspectives

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on the social and economic aspects of corruption in Nigeria. Given the increasingly borderless nature of corruption and economic crime, this paper argues that a successful control campaign requires a coordinated response that will fuse domestic and international strategies. While the paper is wholly committed to the strategy of depriving criminals of their ill-gotten wealth, it acknowledges that the success that law enforcement agencies have had around the world in ‘taking the profit out of crime’ has been hitherto unimpressive. Drawing on the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), particularly Article 20, the paper argues that governments in developing economies should adopt the radical strategy of taxing unaccountable wealth and criminalising illicit enrichment.