We do not have hard statistics to establish the causal relationship between money laundering and economic performance in Nigeria, but we can draw from the experience of some Latin American countries, which were notorious for drug trafficking, as compared to those of Malaysia and Singapore, two countries with the most stringent drug and money laundering laws and, very resilient and stable financial systems.
While the starting point was perhaps less than auspicious, it is very encouraging to see that African countries as Benin and Senegal nowadays often appear among the global top 10 reformers in the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” indicators. Due to these promising developments, Africa has become a region that boasts strong business opportunities, both for African entrepreneurs and for foreign ones.