ISLAMIC LAW CONCEPT OF WEALTH CIRCULATION AS PANACEA TO THE SCOURGE OF ECOMOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIME IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Economic and financial crime refers to non-violent criminal and illicit activity aimed at
gaining wealth illegally. Perpetration of this crime always comes with unpleasant
implications on the economic stability of affected nations as well as the financial
standing of the victim citizens thereat. Nigeria is indeed one of those nations of the
world which are badly affected by the scourge of this crime. Attempt to curb this has
prompted successive government administrations in the country to develop a number
of legal and institutional frameworks but without much succor up till now. The fact that
wealth acquisition is a major target of the perpetrators of this crime raises puzzles as
to the adequacy and effectiveness of wealth circulation provisions in the Nigerian legal
regime. This therefore calls for imminence of the need in this paper to transcend the
confines of the Nigeria law and research into how the objective of wealth circulation is
being treated in another legal regime, both in theory and practice. The benefit which
lies in this exercise is to become familiar with what the system is like in the alien law
and to see to what extent the Nigerian law can take useful cue (if any) therefrom