CIFIAN condemns Federal Government’s reliance on expatriates to tackle graft

Court to rule on application to unfreeze account
The Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Auditors of Nigeria (CIFIAN) has chided the Federal Government for its undue reliance on expatriate forensic and investigative auditors to probe corporate fraud.

The body lamented that Nigeria lacks the capacity to effectively mainstream forensic and investigative auditing in its anti-fraud drive and had to rely on foreign expatriate.

In a communique issued and signed by CIFIAN President, Victoria Enape, at the end of its second national conference, the institute stressed the need to align human and institutional capacity-building in forensic and investigative audit to the needs of government and national economic development

Enape pointed out that prior to the establishment of CIFIAN, there was no Nigerian professional body devoted to the development of idiosyncratic skills in the practice of forensic and investigative audit, as forensic and investigative audit involves skills and micro analytic features that conventional accountants and auditors do not have.

She said: “The challenges of corruption, fraud, money-laundering, economic and financial crimes in Nigeria cannot be solved from the same level of consciousness and by the same cohort of professional bodies and practices that created them in the first place.”

The body, however, advocated the professionalisation of forensic and investigative auditing recognised globally as an effective mechanism in corruption, fraud prevention and gathering of prosecutorial evidence in such crimes.

In another development, Justice Saliu Saidu of the Federal High Court, Lagos, will on December 11, 2018 rule on application filed by a suspected drug trafficker, Eze Remigus Rapuruchukwu, against the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) over his seized N208.5 million in a bank.

Counsel to the defendant, Mr. Collins Ogbonna, informed the court yesterday of his application filed for the release of his client’s three accounts with Fidelity Bank where the said alleged proceeds were kept.

He said the NDLEA acted in flagrant disobedience to a court order of May 21, 2018 discharging an interim forfeiture earlier obtained.

He added that the bank had since May 13, denied his clients access to the bank account by the virtue of NDLEA’s letter to the bank.

He, therefore, urged the court to declare the NDLEA and the bank’s action as contemptuous of the majestic power of the court.

But counsel to the NDLEA, Mr. Lambert Nor, prayed the court to dismiss the application, submitting that the order sought by the suspected drug trafficker is not against the new PND status on the defendant’s account.

The trial judge adjourned ruling till December 11, 2018.