President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime has called on world leaders to strengthen international cooperation to combat terrorism successfully and drug trafficking.

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

These were the positions presented at the conference of the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna.

The Chairman, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Buba Marwa, presented Nigeria’s positions 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.

According to Mr Marwa, while preventing terrorists from benefitting from ransom payments is crucial, it is also important not to overlook the trafficking of illicit drugs and “substances of abuse that serve as conflict multipliers.”

“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.

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

He said the perpetrators of the act, including financial institutions acting as enablers, should be dissuaded.

“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,” Mr Marwa stated.

(NAN)