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From Sola Ojo, Abuja
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has pledged its support for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the fight against corruption and illicit financial flows in Nigeria.
The NLC General Secretary and General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation-Africa (ITUC-Africa), Akhator Joel Odigie, made the pledge when he led a delegation of the union on a courtesy visit to the EFCC in Abuja.
Odigie said the visit was part of a wider continental campaign by ITUC-Africa against illicit financial flows, which he said was already ongoing in Zambia and Kenya and would extend to Uganda, Ghana and Senegal.
He said the campaign was rooted in the African Union-commissioned Mbeki Panel report, which found that about $60 billion left Africa annually as of 2005 through tax avoidance, tax evasion and other illicit financial practices by large businesses and wealthy individuals.
“Our coming today, first, is a way of solidarity. To say we are with you in this fight. Let us fight together.
“That more than ever before, the fight you are undertaking is on behalf of the Nigerian people, on behalf of the workers,” Odigie said.
He argued that Africa was not a net debtor but a net creditor continent because of the resources being taken out of the continent through illicit financial flows.
“We make the argument globally, and successfully, that the continent is not a net debtor.
“Rather, we are a net creditor continent. In other words, people are taking from this continent,” he said.
Odigie called for stronger and safer whistleblowing mechanisms to enable workers who witness corruption to report such cases without fear of victimisation.
He said the NLC had been considering ways to ensure that workers who expose corrupt practices could report them safely and receive adequate protection from relevant institutions.
The NLC general secretary also linked the fight against corruption to workers’ demand for a living wage, arguing that wages remained central to any country’s social protection framework.
According to him, African governments that endorsed a 2012 International Labour Organisation recommendation on social protection had often cited lack of funds as a reason for poor implementation, even as substantial resources were lost through corruption and illicit financial outflows.
Responding, the EFCC Director of Public Affairs, Commander Wilson Uwujaren, who represented the Executive Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, said the Commission had moved beyond merely lamenting illicit financial flows to active enforcement through investigations, arrests and recoveries.
Uwujaren, however, acknowledged that the EFCC could not win the anti-corruption war alone and welcomed stronger collaboration with labour and other civil society organisations.
“The Commission welcomes collaboration from every organisation, civil society, faith-based organisations, all of them.
“And the NLC, as far as I am concerned, is the lead organisation when it comes to civil society activities,” he said.
He added that public enthusiasm for the EFCC’s whistleblowing policy, introduced around 2016, had declined in recent years partly because of insufficient sustained engagement by civil society groups.
Uwujaren urged the NLC to help sensitise workers to the impact of corruption on their livelihoods and encourage them to participate actively in exposing corrupt practices.
“Workers are usually the greatest victims of corruption anywhere in the world. And it is even more so in Nigeria,” he said.
He challenged the labour movement to rekindle the whistleblowing culture in the country by helping ordinary workers understand the connection between corruption and their livelihoods.
He further said the Commission recognised the importance of working with organisations that shared its anti-corruption values, stressing that the partnership with the NLC needed to be revived.
“We are for that because, like I said, we cannot do it alone. The Commission welcomes collaboration from every organisation, civil society, faith-based organisations, all of them,” Uwujaren said.
