EGMONT: BURYING NIGERIA’S FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE UNIT

Sebastian Ikyegh Agbinda argues that the new outfit to fight corruption should be independent

The Egmont Group is a 152 – nation network of National Financial Intelligence Units. It provides a platform for sharing criminal intelligence and financial information pertaining to money laundering, terrorist financing, the proliferation of arms, corruption, financial and economic crimes, and other similar offences geared towards the support for local and international investigation, prosecution and assets recovery. Nigeria was admitted into the body fully in 2007 after operational entry in 2005. However, the country was suspended from the Egmont Group in 2017 on account of the absence of a legal and regulatory framework for the National Financial Intelligence Unit. To some extent, this was because the nation’s financial intelligence unit, being harboured in the bowels of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) lacked operational and financial autonomy. Egmont therefore requested that Nigeria process the legislation that would dress its financial intelligence unit as such before March, when it was going to have its next meeting, or suspension would graduate into expulsion.

Of course, the consequences of expulsion are dire. Nigeria would be unable to fund international transactions as expulsion would imperil the use of VISA, Master Card, credit and debit cards used by Nigerian banks. Implication for financial sector is also in the realm of international ratings for Nigeria’s financial institutions, restricting their access to big – ticket, and international transactions. It also impinges on other areas of access to information pertaining to money laundering, terrorist financing, proliferation of arms and corruption - all very critical for international investigations, prosecution and assets recovery which will be imperilled – especially because exit from the 152 nations Egmont platform would mean the country would be out alone internationally in the great “Buhari war” against corruption.

So, the National Assembly apparently exhausted the time from the period of suspension is now rigorously perfecting legislation to comply with the Egmont Group’s conditionalities for re-entry and beat the March deadline which is around the corner. Indeed, they are in the final legislative processes. Both chambers of the National Assembly have divergent and conflicting perspectives concerning Egmont requirements, which is perfectly in order. They are now in the final stages of the labyrinthine process where the two versions, as happens most times, must go through the conference committee of the National Assembly to harmonise disharmonies and discrepancies in the conflicting versions from the two chambers.

Basically, the discrepancies arose not necessarily on account of the operational and financial independence as required by Egmont, but around the location, i.e. where to domicile the financial intelligence unit. The Senate, apparently toeing the line of the Department of State Services, prefers NFIU be locked up in the bowels of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The House of Representatives on the other hand prefers the NFIU to be repositioned where it had been before the suspension, inside the EFCC. The EFCC is quite happy to harbour it – even if it vows it will operate under conditions of operational and financial independence – one of the key requirements of the Egmont Group.

The tragedy of all this is that the presidency’s position in all this is not known. Not a word from Professor Itse Sagay, the anti-corruption Czar or from the President, Africa’s number one Anti-Corruption President, who is presiding over a clannish Fulani triumphalism which he ill defines as non-corrupt.

Having considered all this, I therefore make bold my own position. Incidentally, the prompter for my essay is simple and not for the lazy reason of finding middle ground. The NFIU should stand alone, not operating under the canopy of either the EFCC nor the CBN. First of all, this position is supported by reflecting on a number of questions. Why was the EFCC, given that it also operates covertly, not domiciled in the Department of State Services? Or why was the EFCC, simply not housed in the CBN or even within the Nigerian Police Force, in which it would have maintained the so-called operational and financial autonomy? The relationship between the NPF and EFCC remains quite apt especially given that the headship of EFCC has come from that institution.

The fact and character of independence can be flawed and flouted simply on account of physical accommodation, which inevitably compromises operational and financial mentality and philosophy. Is it that the new body we are contemplating, Department of Financial Intelligence (DFI) will be so cash strapped, it will only survive if housed by either the EFCC or CBN? Beyond mentality and philosophy, there is the important fact of all the institutions mentioned here- from the DSS, EFCC or CBN. Then add to them, the ICPC, the NPF, NIA, the Office of the Attorney General, Local and State governments, the Federal Civil Service, the military and so many other organs and institutions of government having to depend on the new Independent Financial Intelligence Department for investigations, local and international, prosecution and assets recovery.

So back to the opening paragraph of this essay to sufficiently grasp the range and size of the new DFI as a member of the Egmont Group to fully understand what this perspective embodies. The new Financial Intelligence Unit is quite easily the most international of all existing financial intelligence outfits we have on account of membership of the 152 – nation Egmont platform. It collates the intelligence, where EFCC may not have the reach to, feeds the EFCC with the intelligence just like it does to the ICPC, DSS, et al, for purposes of prosecution and itself possessing powers of prosecution like the AG’s office. So why bury such a powerful new body inside the EFCC? If not for EFCC’s own so-called “independence” it should exactly be under the canopy of the new DFI in proposition. What we are proposing is available in several other Egmont member nations.

For one, the EFCC has literally been operating like a police outfit, with all the negative temperament that goes with it mostly on account of its police headship. Add to the fact that it has built a controversial impression of a political witch hunt outfit only interested in what the presidency of the day wants it to do – an impression that goes with a preoccupation with political related economic corruption. All other items on its mandate list have been played down in this operational obsession. To now anchor such a new critical body, which should be a service hub for a multiplicity of the other agencies in Nigeria in areas as diverse as security, financial, economic, political and an international reach, to the EFCC, especially and even the less tarnished CBN, is to do a great injustice to both the new institution and to the fight against corruption.

To be sure, the mandate of the NFIU for which I propose the DFI, is much larger than that of the EFCC which defeats the reasoning for anchoring the new body in the moors of the EFCC. The EFCC, see Section 1, sub-section 2(c), has no mandate in the areas of financial arms proliferation, financial terrorism. This is not to talk of the access to the 152 nations on the Egmont coalition. Why tie such a new critical body with a larger mandate to a local one with a smaller mandate developed by a police with political mindset? The other perspective we must acknowledge here is that the war on corruption, economic crime, terrorism, nepotism (Fulani supremacy), insecurity, arms proliferation is not being won. If anything, we are in the worst shape ever from Boko Haram to ISWA (ISIS in West Africa) related Fulani herdsmen all over Nigeria, and the challenge of corruption worse than ever in the picture that emerged when Buahri addressed the AU recently. This picture is here with us in spite of the great efforts from NIA, EFCC, DSS, NPF, CBN, the military et al. So, a new outfit with a larger mandate and greater outreach should be given legislative latitude to operate and not buried in the tents of existing institutions whose work has not brought abatement to the status report. Agbinda is ARISE TV Analyst