Combatting Money Laundering in Nigeria: Challenges and Suggested Solutions

Abstract

Nigeria State has been an entity from inception that is endowed with multitudes of economic and growth provoking physical and natural resources with which she could have raised her head above any micro or macro-economic storms. But this nation as blessed as she is has never been seen to have maximally explored her potentials for the good of the citizenry. Scholars of repute have come out with series of research works blaming the economic woes of the nation on bad leadership, corruption, political instability occasioned by incessant military incursions, faulty economic policies just to mention but a few. In furtherance of the quest for other causes apart from the aforementioned, our research light is beamed on money laundering, identified as a phenomenon to be completely wiped out of our system to further promote economic growth and development through home grown savings and investment, job opportunities, increased fund availability for industrialization, SMEs, and considerable increase in the per capita income as a measure of improving the nation’s standard of living. Thus this paper examines the various causes of money laundering in Nigeria, challenges of fighting it, its effects on the nation’s economy and offers useful suggestions on how to prevent and eliminate the causes and ultimately, the effects of the bad practice.

Keywords: Money Laundering, Natural Resources, Macro-Economics, Citizenry, Economic Policies, Savings and Investment, Industrialization