Global Journal of Management and Business Research, B: Economics and Commerce, Volume 20 Issue 1

However, as part of efforts geared at fighting corruption and strengthening the economy, Nigeria embarked on an aggressive pursuit of economic reform through privatization, banking sector reform, anti- corruption campaigns and establishment of clear and transparent fiscal standards since 1999 with no apparent improvement. Fraud is criminal deception, whereby the use of false representation or trick, or deception intended to benefit a party is common. Fraud also means the use of criminal deception by someone to obtain an unjust or illegal advantage from another person. Fraud also means the diversion of persons or organizations money, property or material by someone for the satisfaction of the perpetrators personal or selfish gains through criminal deceptive means. Fraud as an act or cause of deception or trick deliberately indulged or practised by someone to gain some advantage dishonestly from another person. A person is said to be fraudulent having the intent to defraud, having the intention to deceive and using such deceit, obtain some advantage for himself and to cause loss to another person. Corruption is synonymous with decomposition, moral deterioration, bribery, kickbacks, embezzlement, and the use of corrupt practices. Fraud is a component of Corruption. f) Constructive Trust According to Osbon’s Concise Law Dictionary (supra) is a trust "raised by Equity to satisfy the demands of justice and good conscience without reference to any presumed intention of the parties". Kodilinye (1994) defined Constructive Trust as an imposition “by the Court on grounds of conscience, without reference to the implied or presumed intention of any person”. Even though the concept, according to him, is imprecise, in America its wide application is used against unjust enrichment. However, in English law, the scope is narrower to the following headings: i. Unauthorized profits by trustees and other fiduciaries. ii. Strangers receiving or intermeddling with trust property. iii. Vendors of the land after signing the Contract of Sale. iv. Mortgages and Mortgagors in certain situations. v. Acquisition of property by fraud. Of these, the first application of constructive trust is more appealing as a weapon against corruption among public officers. According to the Trust Concept, a trustee is a person who holds the trust property for the benefit of the cestus que trust, though the legal owner of the property, the trustee is not to benefit anything from the Property. a. Trust refers to the wilful dispossession of one's property by passing on or vesting the ownership of its title to one or more persons known as trustees who can only apply the benefits arising from the property so bequeathed at the appropriate time to the benefit of the beneficiary (ies). A trust can be created when an estate or property is held by a person known as a trustee for the benefit of another person so named in the will called a beneficiary. Trust also relates to an equitable obligation that is binding on a person called the trustee dealing in a property he has custody of, for the benefit of persons called beneficiaries of which he/she may be one beneficiary. b. Trustee refers to a person whom the administration of a trust is given, and holds the property on trust on behalf of another person known as a beneficiary. However, nothing in law precludes a trustee from being a beneficiary if so appointed. Trustees are persons to whom a property (ies) is/are legally committed in trust, to be applied either for the benefit of specified individuals or public uses; one who is instructed with property for the benefit of another. It may also be a person in whose hands or care the effects of another person are attached in a trustee process. It may also be an attachment of a debtor's wages, credits, or property in the hands of a third person solely for the interest of the creditor. In a simple term, your property is kept within the trust to administer in your interest either to generate interest or profit from it. This interest or income so generated may be for my exclusive use or your use but some stipend has to come to the fund manager and the government (Abomaye-Nimenibo, 2017: 171 - 178) By extension, that is “a constructive trustee of any profits he makes out of the property” under his care, for the benefit of the beneficiary (Kodilinye, supra). Under the authority of De Bussche V. Alt. (1877) 8 Ch.D.286, the above rule applies not only to trustees but also to other fiduciaries such as agents, partners and Company Directors. “It is an inflexible rule of a Court of equity that a person in a fiduciary position is not, unless otherwise expressly provided, entitled to make a profit; he is not allowed to put himself in a position where his interest and duty conflict” Lord Herschell in Bray V. Ford (1896) A.C. 44, H.L, at p.51. A leading Case is Keech V. Sand ford (1726) Sel. Cas. t. King 61. In that case, the defendant was the express trustee of the Lease of a market for an Infant. The defendant requested a renewal in favour of the infant but this was refused by the lessor on grounds of the infant’s Contractual incapacity. As the lessor had no objection to a renewal in favour of the trustee, he took a Constructive Trust: The only True Potent Weapon to Fight Corruption Among Public Officers In Nigeria © 2020 Global Journals 43 Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XX Issue I Version I Year 2020 ( ) B Bulletin,2007). About 70 per cent of Nigerians according to Sanda, (2002) survive barely on an income that is less than one dollar per day.