 Now, the economic community of West African state, ECOWAS, and the network of national anti-corruption institution, NACIWA, have pledged to partner to end corruption and bad leadership in the sub-region. This proposal was convinced in the 5th Annual General Assembly meeting where a new executive committee was expected to emerge, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, AFCC, and the Independent Corruption Corrupt Practices and other related offences commission, which are joint hosts to show that Nigeria's commitment to the success of the original body in the war against corruption and related offences. I did indicate that West African states are fragile. That fragility is made worse by several other factors, political instability in member countries, the insecurity across the sub-region, poor governance, structures, weak rule of law, and then of course corruption. Now, as you know, corruption is a push factor for all of these elements within the sub-region, so which makes it much more imperative for us to work together, especially given the high mobility of illicit financial flows, light arms, drug trafficking, human trafficking, all of the factors that lead to weak states that we need to work together. A new single agency, either in country or out of country, can work on this alone. It has to do with international cooperation. We need to cooperate with one another. It's a borderless crime that we are looking at almost on daily basis, issues of money laundering across the shores of this country, and that is why NACIWA was formed in the first instance, and that is why we're here for the fifth annual general meeting to be able to deliberate and cooperate with one another to share intelligence, to share information, and that is the essence of the meeting today, and that is what we hope to achieve. People around the world, it's a global trend that nations or anti-corruption agencies most cooperate with one another, from UNCAC to a COAS protocol to African Union Convention on Corruption, all these documents have emphasized the need for international cooperation, and that is why we're here also today. The President of NACIWA commended the EFCC and ICPC for its dull goodness in the fight against graft in Nigeria. We are very grateful that we are here today to continue the work that we are asked to do, to deliberate on issues, to look into the challenges, to come out, go down deep down and come out the solutions that can continue to help the transparency framework and space in West Africa. Nigeria was also one of the driving forces for many, many years until we achieved success about three or four years ago in pushing through at the United Nations General Assembly the promotion of international cooperation to combat illicit financial flows and strengthen good practices on asset returns for the sustainable development. I must particularly commend His Excellency, General Muamadou Bwauri, retired GCFR, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as well as his other peers and brotherhood of states and governments for their leadership, dependable support, and constructive guidance to the ECUAS Commission, which has enabled the ECUAS Commission to perform its mission and in particular advancing the promotion of democracy and good governance in the region. Allow me to also use this opportunity to commend the steps taken by various member justice governments towards making the culture of transparency, accountability, and integrity entrenched in the governance process in the region.