Despite the dogged fight against corruption by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government, the country has been suspended by an international anti-corruption organisation, Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.
The country was suspended at the organisation’s meeting early July, in China and the suspension is until January 2018, after which the country may be completely expelled if it fails to put things rights as demanded by its membership.
The organisation had criticised the country’s anti-corruption strategy as “cock and shoot,” renewing concerns over the fitness of Acting Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Magu to lead the anti-graft war. The DSS had warned in March, 2017 that Magu "will eventually constitute a liability to the anti-corruption drive of the present administration."
The EGMONT Group of Financial Intelligence Units comprises about 152 countries of the world, who cooperate and engage in financial intelligence sharing among members.
This intelligence gathering and sharing are crucial to the universal and domestic war against corruption, money laundering and terrorism financing by various member countries.
For example, if Nigeria needs financial report on a suspect of economic and sundry crimes, it can approach the EGMONT group for assistance and could have access to records of all the bank accounts of the suspect wherever they are located in the world.
The Nigeria’s Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) enjoys those and other benefits by virtue of our membership of EGMONT Group.
The NFIU, therefore, supplies all the firepower and financial intelligence report to the nation’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to fight corruption. Without the NFIU, the EFCC would struggle to carry out its statutory functions effectively.
However, being a member of EGMONT comes with certain rules and standards which must be complied with by each member nation. Among them is to domicile the NFIU within any government agency but on the condition that it must have operational autonomy from undue interference or excessive control by such agency, individual, or politicians.
Magu, sources said, has continuously interfered and violated all the applicable standards of ensuring rule of law and integrity of the NFIU by transferring, core and experienced, highly trained workers out of the unit, while bringing untrained police officers amongst other offences.
It was revealed that repeated warnings from EGMONT Group were not heeded until the body got fed up and finally suspended Nigeria on July 5.
Last month, at its pre-convention preparations, EGMONT Group condemned Nigeria for what they referred to as “cock and shoot” style of fighting corruption.
A source said: “all our efforts to join the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) where we already secured an observer status is down the drain unless we get it right before January 2018. This is a devastating blow really.
“The NFIU is domiciled within the EFCC. That’s why the leadership of the agency is now being accused of corruptly and endlessly interfering in the operation of the Unit contrary to, and in manifest violation of internationally acceptable standards,” said a reliable source.
Additional reporting: FirstWeekly
