Mr. Ibrahim Magu, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC said between 2006 and 2013, about N1.3 trillion was stolen by 55 persons in Nigeria.

 

Speaking at the convocation of Fountain University in Osogbo Osun state, the EFCC boss, whose lecture was delivered by his Chief of Staff, Mr. Olanipekun Olukoyede said the amount could fund massive infrastructural development in many sectors and could train almost 4,000 children from primary school to university with a budget of N25m for each of them.

 

The EFCC boss said Nigerians should not leave the anti-corruption war to President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Yemi Osunbajo and the commission alone, saying every Nigerian must support the anti-graft war with the aim of winning it.

He said, “This was why I said we owe it to ourselves, it is a jihad for all of us to wage the war against corruption. It is unpatriotic and a shirking of our responsibilities as citizens to fold our arms and leave the fight against corruption to President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, the EFCC and a handful of others. We are all stakeholders in the fight against economic and financial crimes; together we can defeat this evil.

“Indeed, corruption could have killed Nigeria if the rate at which corruption was festering then had not been checked. Take for instance, the money stolen by just 55 people between 2006 and 2013 is well over N1.3tn. One third of this money, using the World Bank rates and cost could have comfortably been used to construct 635.15 km of roads; built 183 schools; educate 3,974 children from primary to tertiary education levels at N25.24m per child; built 20, 062 units of 2-bedroomed houses across the country and do even more.

 

“The cost of this grand theft therefore is that, these roads, schools and houses will never be built and these children will never have access to quality education because a few rapacious individuals had cornered for themselves what would have helped secure the lives of future generations, depriving them of quality education and healthcare, among others,” he said.

 

Magu also faulted the claims by some corrupt persons of selective prosecution, saying the EFCC was oblivious of the ethnic background or religious belief of corrupt persons when they were being investigated, saying those playing up the ethnic cards were doing so to whip up sentiments in order to go scot-free with their loots.