Nigeria’s quest to exit the Grey List of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) being spearheaded by the Director/CEO of Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) got a boost in recent times after the country’s representatives to the plenary meetings of GIABA and Egmont group of FIUs made an excellent showing.
This was disclosed in a statement signed by Sani Tukur, Head, Strategic Communications Office, NFIU.
According to Tukur, the Director/CEO of NFIU, Hafsat Abubakar Bakari who led a powerful delegation to the plenary meetings of GIABA ( The Inter Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa), and who was attending the meetings for the first time as NFIU boss was given the honour of chairing the 41st Technical Commission and Plenary meeting of the group, which held in Senegal.
After the Senegal parley, the Director headed to the meeting of the 30th plenary session of the Egmont group of FIUs holding in Paris between June 2 to 7.
There too, Nigeria alongside Congo Brazzaville co-sponsored the admission of the Financial Intelligence Agency of Liberia into the Egmont Group
Nigeria had been mentoring the Liberian FIU for full membership of the group since 2019. The admission of Liberia to the Egmont group is therefore, a restatement of Nigeria’s ability to offer requisite leadership in the area of the fight against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing.
In the same vein, the Chief of Staff at the NFIU, Mohammed Shahid Ahmed was selected as the Vice Chairman of the Egmont group to the delight of not just the Nigerian delegation but other FIUs representatives as a whole.
Before then, Ms Bakari had led her team to sign Memorandum of Understanding with three countries, namely, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Sultanate of Oman.
These MOUs are aimed towards facilitating exchange of information and establishing strategic partnerships towards Combatting money laundering, terrorist financing and other serious crimes.
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