The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) is insisting that the Nigeria Financial
Intelligence Unit (NFIU) was independent of its
control.

Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the commission,
said this at an interactive session with editors in
Abuja., that ongoing efforts to create a “stand-alone’’
NFIU was needless.

Magu said ongoing efforts to create a “stand-alone’’
NFIU was needless.

NFIU, which is domiciled in the EFCC, was recently
suspended by the Egmont Group of Financial
Intelligence Units reportedly for not being independent.

Egmont Group is a global financial intelligence
gathering body made up of 156 Financial Intelligence
Units (FIUs) representing 156 countries.

It is a platform for members to share expertise and
financial intelligence to combat money laundering and
terrorist financing.

The group reportedly demanded autonomy for the
NFIU as a condition for the suspension to be lifted,
failing which Nigeria would be expelled in
January 2018.

Following the suspension, the senate moved to
establish the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Agency
through a bill, which passed second reading in July.

But Magu said, “I am not opposed to the autonomy of
the NFIU; in fact the NFIU has always been
operationally autonomous.

“I understand the workings of Financial Intelligence
Units around the world and they are domiciled in law
enforcement agencies based on their credibility.

“This is another way of corruption fighting back;
people are fighting and pretending to be in support of
what is ongoing, but they are not giving a face to the
fight against corruption.’’

Shedding more light on this, the Director of the NFIU,
Mr Francis Usani, said the Egmont Group was simply
asking for amendment of Section 1(2)(c) of the EFCC
Act.

Usani said the group was not demanding the creation
of a separate NFIU as being portrayed in some
quarters.

“The section says that the EFCC is a designated FIU,
but the group is saying the provision is not clear to
them.

“What the group is saying is that we should create the
NFIU as a unit under the EFCC by amending that
provision of the EFCCT Act. It is as simple as that.

“But it is unfortunate that the perception generally is
tending towards abusing what the Egmont Group is
asking us to do.

“As the Chairman has said, there is a very high level of
operational autonomy in the NFIU.

“When we talk about operational autonomy it is
different from administrative autonomy.

“The NFIU has three core responsibilities which are to
receive information, analyse the information and
disseminate it to law enforcement agencies.”

Usani said other law enforcement agencies make
request for information directly to the NFIU without the
knowledge of the EFCC chairman.

He explained that the chairman had no knowledge of
information given by the NFIU to agencies like the
ICPC, DSSAN among others.

“The NFIU signs MoUs without the EFCC chairman’s
consent, I attend meetings within and outside the
country which the chairman doesn’t know about,” he
said.

“There are a lot of other things we do at the NFIU
without his knowledge. The chairman doesn’t ask me
who is making request to us or to who we are making
request to.

“Even my international engagements he doesn’t know
about.

“All these give credence to its operational autonomy.
But these issues are being politicised and that is what
pains me the most,” he added.

The director warned that a stand-alone NFIU was
against the principles and protocols of the Egmont
Group and would earned the country total expulsion.

TheCable