The Federal Government has called on world leaders to strengthen international cooperation as part of efforts to successfully combat terrorism and drug trafficking, among other crimes.

This is even as Nigeria expressed concern over illicit financial flows from developing to developed economies.

These were the positions presented by Nigeria at the ongoing conference of the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice taking place in Vienna, Austria.

The Chairman, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA), retired Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa, presented Nigeria’s positions on items 6C and 7 at the meeting on May 19 and May 20.

A statement by the agency’s Director, Media and Advocacy, Mr Femi Babafemi, on Friday in Abuja, said Marwa urged nations to deepen cooperation and strengthen the processes of combating the financing of terrorism.

Marwa added that while prevention of terrorists from benefitting from ransom payments was crucial, it was also important for them not to overlook the trafficking in illicit drugs.

According to him, it is also imperative to keep an eye on and control the proliferation of illicit traffic in narcotics and psychotropic substances.

“And substances of abuse that serve as conflict multipliers leading to escalation of both the scope and intensity of violent activities.

“Nigeria is also worried about the existing and growing links between terrorism and other forms of crime such as corruption, illicit financial flows, money laundering, illicit trafficking in drugs, cybercrime, trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants.

“We, therefore, call on states to strengthen international cooperation to combat these links by providing information, intelligence sharing, mutual legal assistance, logistics support and military cooperation and other forms of technical assistance.

“This is to enhance the capacity of security personnel to combat this new and ugly phenomenon,” he said.

Marwa said as nations renewed their desire to improve international cooperation to address all forms of crimes, Nigeria urged all states, once again, to make sincere efforts to address the root causes.

This, he said, included; poverty, economic deprivation, inequality, drug abuse and other socio-economic factors.

“These factors have been found to be indirectly responsible for the increasing incidences of terrorism and other forms of crimes,” he said.

The NDLEA boss said Nigeria noted with great concern the incidence of illicit financial flows, channeled through the financial systems annually, particularly from developing to developed economies.

He said the perpetrators of this anomaly, including financial institutions who acted as enablers, state parties should be dissuaded.

He added that illicit financial flows when tracked, should not remain in the custody of enabling financial institutions but transferred into escrow accounts, preferably in development banks pending return to countries of origin.

“In this regard, we call for the implementation of the recommendations of the Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI) panel in support of asset recovery and the agenda 2030 for sustainable development,” he said. (NAN)