Speaker Dogara Talks Tough, Tells Western Countries To Return Nigeria’s Stolen Funds

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara yesterday urged the international community especially Western nations to help return billions of dollars looted from Nigeria.

Western nations, the speaker said, have moral and legal obligations to Nigeria and other African countries to ensure that monies stolen from the continent are repatriated.

Dogara stated this during the close of the 4th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in New York.

A statement by the media aide to the speaker, Turaki Hassan quoted Dogara as saying that the return of such funds will help create jobs for millions of jobless young men and women and ultimately reduce to the bearest minimum the surge of migrants to Europe from Africa.

He appealed to heads of parliaments from the West to enact legislations that will block the movement of stolen funds from Africa to their home countries.

As presiding officers of the legislature, Speakers of Western parliaments should put pressure on their governments to return such looted funds to Nigeria, he added.

The speaker also said the international community has to come together to fight terrorism as according to him, “no nation is insulate from its scourge.”

This is the surest way to defeat terrorists because most terrorist organisations have links to each other, the speaker disclosed.