Money Laundering And Terrorist Financing Are High Risk Areas In The Fight Against Corruption

The Director of Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Mr. Francis Usani, at the presentation of Nigeria National Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment Report held at Barcelona Hotel, Wuse 2, Abuja on Thursday, May 26 disclosed that the Nigeria National Risk Assessment Report, NRA, Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing have been identified as high risk areas in the fight against corruption.

The report which was compiled by over 96 persons drawn from 26 MDAs is a response and compliance to Recommendation 1 of the FATF revised standards which enjoined countries to identify, assess and understand its money laundering and terrorist financing risks and to take action, including designing an authority or mechanism to coordinate actions to assess risk and apply resources aimed at ensuring that the risk identified are mitigated effectively with resources commensurate to the risk identified.

Unveiling the report, Usani thanked all the participants for their efforts and contributions towards achieving the mandate. He said, “In understanding the importance of the NRA to Nigeria and the benefits that will inure to its AML/CFT regime was important in factoring ways of dealing with both issues, the NFIU initiated the process for this project. Being a national project, stakeholder MDAs, the private sector and relevant institutions were co- opted to lend their expertise.”

According to him, “Nigeria has made tremendous progress in its AML/CFT regime to the extent that it mentors and sponsors other jurisdictions in the West African sub-region on their AML/CFT regimes, but there still exists gaps within our regime that must be addressed before Nigeria can conveniently say that it has gotten to the Promised Land.”

These gaps, the NFIU Director said have been identified in both the technical compliance status and effectiveness of various AML/ CFT laws and regulations.

In his keynote remark, Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo represented by Bolaji Owasonaye, member Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, said the overall report of the risk assessment indicates that Nigeria has to double its efforts in tackling corruption which is what the present administration is doing.

Dr. Abdullahi Shehu, a former boss of GIABA enumerated the risks associated with increased financial flow into terrorist financing and money laundering to Nigeria’s anti money laundering and terrorist financing regimes.

Also present at the presentation were; Sen Chukwuka Utazi, Chairman Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes and representatives from NIA, Army Headquarters, Office of the NSA, Nigeria Customs Service, NAPTIP, Federal Road Safety Corps, Naval Headquarters and SCUML.

The project, which was funded by the World Bank was inaugurated in March 2015 and set for 18 months with September 2014 estimated as a completion date, suffers a set back until the NFIU assumed the leadership and coordination of the project in August 2015, and within a period of 10 months, the project was concluded.

The money laundering threat that contributed to the risk assessment rating were identified as bribery and corruption, pipeline vandalism, drugs trafficking , kidnapping for ransom and cash smuggling among others. [EFCC]