As member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) strive to combat terrorism, especially through the blockage of illegal flows of funds, the Intergovernmental Action Group Against Money Laundering (GIABA) has scored Nigeria low, stressing that its performance in this regard was not encouraging.
The Director-General of the ECOWAS body, Mr. Edwin Harris, spoke Tuesday at the opening of a three-day training on how to combat terrorism financing. The training brought together stakeholders from relevant sectors and agencies from across the ECOWAS Sub-region.
With the theme, ‘Developing Effective Tools and Strategies to Combat Terrorism Financing,’ Harris, who was represented by the Director of Evaluation and Compliance at GIABA, Dr. Geoffrey Asima, disclosed that Nigeria’s performance was not encouraging in the last corruption evaluation of GIABA.
Noting that finance is the lifeblood of all terror activities, he insisted on the need to block every financial channel used by terror groups to access funds.
Some of these steps to fight terrorism, he stated, include the confiscation and freezing of terrorists’ assets.
“The report of Nigeria’s second mutual evaluation revealed a low effectiveness level in implementing Immediate Outcomes 9 (terrorist financing investigations and prosecutions) and 10 (terrorist financing preventive measures and targeted financial sanctions).
“The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is a global body that sets the international anti-money laundering (AML), Counter-Terrorist Financing (CFT), and Counter-Proliferation Financing (CPF) standards.
“GIABA is a regional body that ensures compliance with the international AML/CFT/PF standards to protect our region against the scourges of money laundering, terrorist financing, and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
“Recognizing the vital importance of taking action to combat the financing of terrorism, GIABA sets our basic frameworks to detect, prevent, and suppress the financing of terrorism and terrorist acts.
“Let us not be shy about it; terrorists need money to be able to kill people. These are different motives, but the results are the same. The logical principle is quite simple: if terrorists have no money, they cannot buy weapons, buy components to build bombs, pay for transportation and logistics, pay for propaganda, recruit followers, remunerate fighters, and maintain the group.
“Therefore, taking money from terrorists greatly prevents attacks and saves lives. By committing to implementing the FATF recommendations, we save lives. GIABA and other sister institutions need your help because terrorists are very creative at finding money,” Harris said.
GIABA’s position on Nigeria might not be disconnected from Nigeria’s seeming reluctance to name and prosecute alleged terrorism financiers.
Even the United Arab Emirates had, in 2021, identified and prosecuted six Nigerians for their involvement in terrorism financing, a feat that seemed impossible in Nigeria despite the high cases of terrorism activities.
Recently, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, stated that the government would neither name nor shame identified financiers of terrorism on the grounds that such a step might jeopardize further investigation or apprehension of others.
In his remarks, the Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, disclosed plans to inaugurate a harmonized database system that will enable authorities to verify and authenticate any document issued in Nigeria.
Tunji-Ojo noted that terrorism financing is an organized crime that requires exceptional strategies by the government to stay ahead of them and the terrorists.
The Minister, therefore, urged ECOWAS and the African Union to ensure that individual and corporate identities are protected to give the region a sense of security.
The Director of the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Hajiya Hafsat Bakari, explained that the training will provide great opportunities for investigators and analysts to come to terms with new trends in investigations. She also disclosed plans by NFIU to establish a training center that will serve as a Centre of Excellence for Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT).
The representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Mr. Kojo Attiso, was worried that the West African region was becoming more intense with terror activities. To effectively fight illicit financial flows and terrorism financing, he maintained that terrorists’ sources of funding must be disrupted with every seriousness it requires.
