LAGOS, Nigeria, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has issued a scathing indictment of the corruption of the former regimes of Generals Babangida and Abacha.
President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate fiscal malfeasance of the country's former administration.
The Daily Champion reported that Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Chairman Mallam Nuhu Ribadu told reporters that "the scourge of corruption that the country is suffering today was institutionalized during regimes after that of General Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon.
"The Buhari-Idiagbon regime's dramatic attempt to face up to the problem which achieved modest results in the direction of national reorientation was rubbished by the actions of subsequent military regimes that governed the country between 1985 and 1998. Under them, corruption became the sole guiding principle for running affairs of state. The period witnessed a total reversal and destruction of every good thing in the country -- positive values were jettisoned, agencies were decimated."
Nigeria is Africa's largest oil exporter, with an average of 2.5 million barrels pumped daily, and is the United States' fifth-largest oil supplier. Western analysts estimate that corrupt politicians have stolen up to $170 billion of Nigeria's oil revenues over the years.
