Nigeria to exit money laundering grey list, says NFIU

The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has said the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had approved three additional grades in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing quest, making it the fifth progress report since greylisting the country in February 2023.
 
FATF is the global body established in 1995 to lead global action against money laundering, terrorism, and arms proliferation financing. The organisation had grey-listed Nigeria due to a rise in capital inflows and deficiencies in combating money laundering, terrorism, and arms financing.
 
In a statement yesterday by the NIFU’s Strategic Communications Office in Abuja, the organisation said FATF gave the approval at a meeting of Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) technical commission which took place between November 17 and 23, 2024 in Freetown, the Republic of Sierra Leone.
 
Statutorily, as it stands today, the country is compliant (C) or largely compliant (LC) in 37 out of the 40 recommendations, leaving it with three to scale.
 
Chief Executive Officer of the NFIU, Hafsat Abubakar Bakari, who doubles as Nigeria’s National Correspondent (NC) for the ECOWAS’ GIABA, led the country’s delegation.
 
Included in the team were representatives from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Special Control Unit against Money Laundering (SCUML), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Ministry of Justice (FMOJ), Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA).