Natural resources endowment is a blessing to the endowed states due to their catalytic development-driving potential. The exploitation of the endowment should result in rapid socio-economic development. However, for most developing states, the blessing of these natural resources strangely tends to turn disadvantageous; a phenomenon that has been distinctly identified in the literature as ‘the resource curse’. This paper examines that phenomenon, using Nigeria as a case study given the serious environmental, political and socio-economic challenges occasioned by the country’s exploitation of its oil and gas endowment. The paper particularly considers the impact of the statutory intervention in Nigeria to reverse the trend through the instrumentality of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Act (NEITI Act) 2007. The paper further explores what could be the most effective means of containing the said problems in light of their implications for the future of the country and its people.
Financial crimes are debilitating problems for economies, especially emerging ones. The scourge of financial crimes includes money laundering, fraud, drug and human trafficking, terrorism financing, bribery, embezzlement, market manipulation, tax evasion, identity theft, forgery and cybercrime. These problems are so intractable and potentially destructive that the collective effort to prevent or contain them has gone global. The imperative of enhanced transparency and financial system integrity, not only in national financial systems but also in the international financial order, has become inevitable. This has resulted in the landmark frameworks of the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and the G7’s Financial Action Task Force. This paper discusses the legal combat of financial crimes in two major African economies: Nigeria and South Africa, with particular emphasis on money laundering and terrorism financing due to their direct negative macro-economic implications for any economy. The focus on the twin problems in those two economies is based on their pre-eminent position in Africa. The paper examines the legal frameworks for the prevention or containment of the scourge in the two countries and interrogates measures that could engender their effective control.
The systemic importance of banks in any economy brings to the fore the inevitability of exploring ways of keeping banks not only strong but also within the safety level desired by depositors and financial managers. This is underscored by the invaluable and fundamental roles of these financial institutions in the maintenance of financial stability. The state of banking regulation in Nigeria, especially before the introduction of reforms in the sector, had given serious cause for concern. This observation is in light of serious illiquidity and systemic distress that was synonymous with the banking sector in Nigeria in the 1990s and even into the opening years of the twenty-first century. This article examines in detail the legal and institutional frameworks for banking regulation in Nigeria. It finds that the challenge of ineffective regulation of the banks in the country may not necessarily be associated with the dearth or non-comprehensiveness of statutes on the subject but rather borders on uncoordinated and ineffective enforcement mechanisms, coupled with policy inconsistency on the part of banking regulators. This situation engenders confusion, uncertainty and instability because prospective investors tend to be more hesitant, depositors shy away from saving with banks and banks tend to have to grapple with persistent illiquidity when the system is unpredictable. The article therefore advocates a policy shift from legislative review to effective enforcement of the existing laws regulating banks in Nigeria in order to grow these financial institutions into transparent, efficient, strong and globally competitive institutions.
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