Illicit Enrichment and Unexplained Wealth in Africa: Colonial Legacies, and Anti-Corruption Enforcement in Nigeria and Kenya (The Law of Financial Crime)

This book offers a governance-centred analysis of unexplained wealth regulation in post-colonial states.Moving beyond conventional doctrinal approaches, the book argues that unexplained wealth regimes are not merely technical legal innovations, but diagnostic instruments that expose the institutional and political conditions under which accountability is pursued.Drawing on comparative socio-legal analysis of Nigeria and Kenya, alongside high-capacity jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and Ireland, it demonstrates that the effectiveness of asset recovery mechanisms depends less on statutory design than on judicial credibility, institutional coordination, political insulation, and the integrity of evidentiary processes. Challenging culturalist explanations of corruption, the book situates illicit enrichment within historically produced political economies shaped by colonial administration, elite bargaining, and transnational financial networks.It advances the concept of