The Egmont Group is to expel Nigeria if it fails to sign the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit bill into law by September

By Anayo Ezugwu

NIGERIA has a six months grace to sign the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, bill into law if it is to remain a member of the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.

The Egmont Group will decide the fate of Nigeria’s membership at its plenary which is to hold in Sydney, Australia, in September.

Prior to this, there were fears that the group was going to expel Nigeria for failure to pass a law granting autonomy to the NFIU and relocating it from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, before March 11.

Nigeria was placed on suspension in July 2017 at the plenary of the heads of FIUs in Macau.  As part of efforts to beat the March 11, deadline, the National Assembly rushed on Wednesday, March 7, to pass the NFIU Bill 2018, relocating it from the EFCC to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

It is not only Nigeria’s case that will be discussed in September. The FIUs of Italy, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, and two other nations  will also feature at the September 2018 plenary. There will also be an inter-session meeting in June 2018 when members could send updates on their status reports for review before the September 2018 plenary.

The Egmont Group, through its Membership Support and Compliance Working Group, has identified two issues which Nigeria must address before the September 2018, plenary to have the suspension on it lifted or risk outright expulsion.

The first is a review of the relevant provisions of the EFCC Act which, currently is the law that created the NFIU, to guarantee the “protection of confidentiality, specifically as regards to the status of Suspicious Transfer Reports information and information deriving from international exchanges” and not an outright passage of a new law.

The second area is the need for Nigeria to address “legal basis and clarity on the NFIU’s operational independence from the EFCC” as currently provided in section 1(2)(c)of the EFCC Act.

Realnews reports that the new NFIU bill passed by the National Assembly had resolved the issue of domiciliation of the NFIU by deleting the extant Section 2(c) of the EFCC Act and establishing the NFIU as an independent entity domiciled in the CBN.

However, Kayode Oladele, chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes, while praising the passage of the bill, expressed some reservations. He noted that though Nigeria now had an independent NFIU, he feared that it might be a “toothless bulldog” having no power to bite.

Contrarily, Bukola Saraki, Senate president, said the National Assembly’s passage of the bill was prompt, so as to facilitate Nigeria’s re-admission into the Egmont Group rather than being expelled and that when assented to by the president, it would make the NFIU an independent entity and also help the country in the fight against corruption.

If the country fails to sign the bill it will have adverse effect on the country and will equally affect the anti-corruption war of the present administration. For instance, Nigerians may no longer be able to carry out international transactions. Another major consequence of the expulsion will be the blacklisting of Nigeria in the international finance circle, affecting their ability to issue payment cards for international transactions.

Banks in the country will be forced to access offshore facilities at a premium, making such funds more expensive for them. Local corporate organisations will be barred from taking part in international transactions. And Nigeria anti-crime agencies will be unable to collaborate with global counterpart agencies in information gathering and sharing.

– Mar. 24, 2018 @ 4:40 GMT |