The federal government says it is fully committed towards returning Nigeria to the Egmont Group fold.
The Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt.. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, stated this on Thursday, November 16, 2017 while declaring open the 28th plenary session of the Inter-Governmental Action Against Money Laundering, GIABA, at Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja.
GIABA is the unit of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS , saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that countries within the sub-region comply with anti money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism regulations, including the implementation of Financial Action Task Force, FATF, standard recommendations.
Dogara called for concerted efforts from member states towards fighting terrorism.
“The magnitude of wanton destruction and loss of lives which terrorism leaves in its trail in most cases elicits universal reactions, such as revulsion, shock, condemnation, and uncertainty. The frequency of terrorist attacks in Africa has necessitated its recognition as a region warranting special counter-terrorism measures”, he said.
According to him, “the Boko Haram in Nigeria has been associated with the death of numerous Nigerians and destructions of properties worth billions of Naira. This is in addition to the disturbing trend of illicit financial flows orchestrated by corrupt public officials who at different times abused public trust for personal gains thereby occasioning the worsened economic woes of unemployment, infrastructural decay,
The Speaker, while expressing the support of the National Assembly to the war against money laundering and terrorism financing, called on the western nations to stop being used as safe haven for stolen funds from poor countries of Africa.
Earlier in his address of welcome, Francis Usani, Director, Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, commended GIABA on its lofty efforts and achievements..
Usani stated that, “Nigeria’s commitment to the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing has shown significant improvement”..
While commending the political will and support of the present administration towards combating money laundering and terrorism financing in Nigeria, Usani assured that, “in the coming weeks the 2018-2020 National AML/CFT strategy and action plan would be presented to the federal executive council for adoption and further circulation to stakeholder agencies and parastatals of government”.
The NFIU Director stated that Nigeria is taking steps towards addressing all the legal issues raised by the Egmont Membership Support and Compliance Working Group and expressed optimism that “by the next Egmont meeting early next year, Nigeria would have addressed those challenges and the suspension will be lifted”.
In his remark, Adama Coulibaly, GIABA Director General called on national AML/CFT stakeholders to re-double their efforts towards diligent implementation of appropriate legislative and regulatory measures, and allocation of consistent financial resources to its Financial Intelligence Units.
He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for not only accepting to host the GIABA meeting in Nigeria but also showing strong will towards combating money laundering and terrorism financing in Nigeria.
“The recent strong measures taken in this context, including the freezing of all bank accounts that are not covered by a bank identification number (BIN) to carry out transactions on all banking platforms in Nigeria for the benefit of the Treasury”, Coulibaly said.
Abubakar Malami, Attorney General and Minister of Justice, in his keynote address decried money laundering and terrorism financing, which according to him “deprives the human society of essential sustainable growth and development’.
Malami, who spoke through Sylvester Imhanobe, Special Adviser to the President on Research and Special Project said, “Nigeria recognizes GIABA’s mandates and responsibilities in ensuring that countries within the ECOWAS community adopt measures within their domestic competence in order to comply and implement the Standard Recommendations set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to address money laundering and terrorism financing”..
