Featured, Judiciary
By Anthony Isibor
LAWYERS and regulators on Tuesday could not agree on the issue of who should be held responsible for the continuous inclusion of Nigeria in the Financial Action Task Force, TAFT grey list.
Speaking at the one-day workshop organized by the NBA Section on Business Law, SBL and the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU in Lagos on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, Muazu Umar, Director, Policy and Research, GIABA, disclosed that that the 2023 report implicated the Nigeria legal profession as having the most significant deficiency in AML compliance.
He explained that even though every country is subjected to the same regulations, Nigerian lawyers have refused to comply with some of these AML regulations.
Insisting that lawyers have a significant role to play in Nigeria’s inclusion in the TAFT grey list, Umar presented a two and half page of 2023 GIABA report, which clearly showed areas where the legal professionals were culpable.
However, Babajide Ogundipe, Co-Chair, NBA Anti-Money Laundering Committee, said that the legal profession should not be stigmatized for Nigeria’s TAFT woes.
He noted that the RBC has designated legal practitioners as a self-regulating profession and that the NBA’s Anti-Money Laundering Committee AMLC is the anti-money laundering regulator for the profession.
According to him, the AMLC cannot properly discharge its role without significant assistance from anyone who is willing to assist.
“The primary consideration, in my own perspective, is that you can’t do any of the things. And it’s a huge task that we have, and I have, agreed. We’ve stumbled into it. We’re in it. We’re deep inside the morass and we need to get ourselves out.
“But the NBA AMLC can’t do this without support. And what is the most important thing we need? Money!,
“Without funding, we cannot staff and equip our secretariat so that we discharge the various obligations that come with the role, our role, as regulators of AML for the profession,” he added.
Ogundipe also pointed out the areas the AMLC should effectively carry out its duties, including a risk assessment report, risk mitigation strategy templates for legal practitioners.
“So what are things we need to do? Of the things we need to do, we’ve prepared a risk assessment report. We’ve shared it with them. We need to review and address the risks assessment report identified.
“We need to develop risk mitigation strategy templates for legal practitioners, mentioned previously for legal practitioners and law firms, remembering at all times that we regulate individuals, we don’t regulate law firms regulate lawyers. So that’s another thing. We need to conduct regular supervisory training for the committee and for ourselves and for our staff. We just have one at the moment. So we got all these people. The NBA has given us premises, office space, empty. It needs to be equipped. We need material. We need to employ people. Okay?
“We need to develop a risk based supervision framework or plan for heavy branches nationwide.
“We need to disseminate the RPC rules and protocols. There are protocols that come with those. We need to disseminate them broadly so that all our members are aware of it. We need to provide guidance based on the rules. We need to assist lawyers and law firms that are exposed to NLFT.
Ogundipe therefore called on lawyers to live up to the standards of the profession by ensuring that they are not culprit of crimes.
According to him, lawyers cannot allow themselves to be used for criminal offenses.
“We need to let the public know that lawyers don’t want people to commit crimes, but when you commit crime, we defend.
“Our job is to make sure that we steer people away so that they don’t get into trouble. It Is an important thing that we reiterate the commitment of the Nigerian Bar Association and Nigerian legal profession for ensuring that we cannot operate like this so that people can start looking at us for what we truly are, because the vast majority of people in Nigeria are good, law abiding people,” he added.
Providing a leeway for both sides, Felix C. Obiamalu, General Counsel, NFIU, noted that although lawyers may not be directly responsible, keeping silent is not enough.
According to him, they must be involved in the fight against financial crimes by ensuring compliance with the requirements of the AML laws.
Obiamalu told Realnews that each time Nigeria was found wanting in the mutual evaluation exercise, the lack of compliance was always the major issue.
He noted that each country is evaluated on two parameters, “Technical and Effectiveness.”
“The Technical evaluation is built on the 40 recommendations, that’s the law.
“The second one is on the effectiveness, impact of those laws on your system. So that is where most countries including Nigeria is deficient.
“And we also know that we have challenges with statistics, keeping records. We do some of these things, but we don’t have the records to show that we have been doing them.
“Then there is the aspect of understanding risk. We must understand our risk and how to mitigate them, we must come together and collaborate among all the agencies within Nigeria, implement the measures that we have on ground. We have expansive measures to combat this crime, implement them and keep statistics of how we managed to do this. It can be achieved,” he said.
Obiamalu added that lawyers should not see themselves as targets, but partners in the fight against financial crimes in the country.
He urged them to engage in compliance sensitization of their clients.
“They know it, let them brief their clients about it. Let them be alive to their responsibility. There is no two ways about it,” he said.
Realnews reports that the workshop, which was organized by the NBA Section on Business Law, SBL and the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, was to collaborate and find lasting solutions on lifting Nigeria out of the TAFT grey list and ensure that the country does not get into the blacklist.
A.I
Jan. 29, 2025
Tags: Anthony Isibor Babajide Ogundipe Felix C. Obiamalu GIABA Muazu Umar NBA Section on Business Law NFIU
