US $140 billion lost to corruption

Corruption has cost Africa at least US $140 billion, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo revealed on Thursday. He said his country alone had spent millions of dollars trying to recover money illegally spirited away by corrupt former leaders. "Imagine what that can do for Africa today," he told a conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "That is a lot of money."

His comments related to the late former Nigerian leader, Sani Abacha, who plundered more than $2 billion from the West African country. Obasanjo argued that international conventions were needed to help stop the flow of illegal funds from African countries into foreign banks abroad. He said countries and banks where illegal funds had been hidden were just as guilty as the corrupt African leaders who had stolen the money.

The president, who has been in power for three years, also said the continent should aim to eradicate all wars and conflicts within 10 years. He said the targets should be achieved through the soon-to-be-launched African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).

Obasanjo, a former general in the Nigerian army, also said poverty must be slashed, and life expectancy dramatically increased within a time scale of 10 years. "We talk of peace and absence of conflict as the foundations of whatever else we want to do. If 10 years from now the war that blights the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola and Sudan is [over, leaving them] peaceful, then they will have achieved a major success," he added.

Obasanjo added that poverty must be reduced by 50 percent – although he said they could achieve more than that – and illiteracy in Africa be cut to less that 10 percent. "These are some of the key areas," he told a meeting at the United Nations Conference Centre. "That is how you will judge our success." He said for those targets to be met, there must be investment - both domestic and foreign. "They are obtainable. They are not impossible objectives."

He said Nepad, the AU and the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa offered real hope to the continent’s 700 million people. The Nigerian leader, who was once jailed by the country’s former regime, was addressing the Organisation of African Unity and Civil Society Conference. He said civil society had enabled governments to feel the "pulse of the people", and that can bring about change in the continent.

"The success of the African Union with Nepad lies in the collective efforts of all Africans - governments, private sector, civil society and the ordinary people of Africa," he stressed.

He said although democratisation in Africa had been affected by the fall of communism and pressure from foreign donors, much of the initial push had come from civil society. "The reality, however, is that it was the resourcefulness, dedication and tenacity of the continent’s nascent civil society organisations that initiated and sustained the process of democratic opening and political liberalisation," he said. "There may have been encouragement and support from outside, but surely the spark came from inside."

He called on civil society organisations – made up of local pressure groups – to keep up the pressure until poverty, bad governance, disease and conflict had been stamped out. "Until that happens, their work and that of national governments remains incomplete," he warned.