Economic and Financial Crime in Penal Administration in Nigeria: An Appraisal

Economic and financial crimes became prevalent and officially recognized as serious threats to the development of Nigeria from the introduction of the structural adjustment and deregulation programs in the eighties, As a result of new emerging brands of economic and financial crimes in many systems in Nigeria, problems of precise and comprehensive definitions were created. In realization of the problems, the Government of Nigeria organized several forms and conferences for concepts and definitions of economic and financial crimes in the Nigerian context. These efforts led to the enactment of Economic and Financial Crimes (establishment) Act, 2004 that defined economic and financial crimes to incorporate all facets of economic and financial crimes in Nigeria. The aim of this paper is to analyze and appraise some concepts of economic and financial crimes in the context of administration of criminal justice in Nigeria with the view of incorporating them into a definition. The research mainly adopted the doctrinal method of research that analytically surveyed statutory provisions, case laws, text books conference materials, thesis etc which served as both primary and secondary sources. It was found that though the statutory definition of economic and financial crimes in Nigeria was very wide, it was not exhaustive enough as it could accommodate more offences in that it ended with etc, it was recommended that the statutory definition be extended by inference to include offences such as e-mail internet related offences and offences involving postal matters.