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The Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, has spoken of “wide measures”
Nigeria is adopting in response to the global financial crisis, in
which he named the well-criticized anti-corruption campaign as one.

Mr. Bankole spoke
to journalists in Abuja on a presentation he made at the United Nations
headquarters, Geneva, at the 3rd World Conference of Speakers of
Parliaments which held between July 19 and 21, 2010.

The theme of the conference was “Parliament in the world of crisis: Securing global democratic accountability.”

Mr. Bankole, who
has recently been accused of corruption and has yet to face an open
investigation, told participants at the meeting that Nigeria has
recorded a high level of anti-corruption campaign, and listed the
effort as part of strategies adopted by the government to deal with the
impact of the crippling global economic crisis. The speaker named last
year’s bank cleansing, in which senior officials were removed and
charged for aiding banking fraud and non-performing loans, as part of
such glory. “The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in fact
detained many bank executives and public officials, as it investigates
allegations of massive banking fraud and official corruption,” he said.

Diversify the economy

He said Nigeria’s
fight against all forms of corruption in the strive to enthrone
accountability, reduction of the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), Cash
Reserve Requirement and the Liquidity Ratio are some of the measures
adopted by government to mitigate the effects of the global economic
downturn. Mr. Bankole highlighted other government’s intervention to
the crisis to include the Central Bank’s intervention, by providing
about $2.6 billion in emergency recapitalization to some banks whose
balance sheets was eroded by toxic loans.

This was
strengthened by the National Assembly’s passage of the Assets
Management Commission bill, recently signed into law by President
Goodluck Jonathan, to deal with the issue of bank’s toxic assets.

The measures, Mr. Bankole told the participants, were required to
shore-up liquidity in the Nigerian economy. He also informed them that
in an effort to diversify the Nigerian economy and broaden the non-oil
sector, government has commenced a comprehensive review of its
agricultural policy with focus on large scale private sector commercial
agriculture.