No NFIU Directive On Lawmakers, Judiciary Accounts, Say Banks

* AGF: no plan to screen records

CHIEF Compliance Officers of banks have denied getting the
Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) letter directing them
to provide bank account details of leaders of the National Assembly
and the Judiciary.

A document, said to be from the NFIU and dated September 10,
showed a request to banks for the information on the accounts of
legislators and the judicial officers.

“Kindly provide the NFIU with a schedule (account names and
account numbers) of the National Assembly, members of National
Assembly and principal officers of National Assembly Service
Commission, as well as all accounts of National Judicial Service
Commission (NJSC) and their principal officers, including judges
and other relevant politically exposed persons. Kindly note that
your response is expected on or before September 13, 2019,” the
letter said.

Though NFIU denied making such request from the banks, a source
in one of the banks said he believed the unit backtracked on the
request after considering the political implications of such
probe.

“I do not want to talk about it because the NFIU has denied
issuing the directive. But I think the denial was an afterthought.
They have weighed the implications of such probe and backtracked,”
the source said.

Another source from other financial institution said the planned
probe may not be unconnected with the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF) team’s Mutual Evaluation planned visit to Nigeria later this
month.

The FATF Mutual Evaluation for Nigeria is being conducted by the
Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West
Africa (GIABA) and was designed to assess the implementation and
effectiveness of the laws, regulations or other measures required
to ascertain the effectiveness of the Anti-Money
Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT)
regime.

Contacted, the GIABA Information Officer in Nigeria, Timothy
Melaye, said he could not speak for NFIU.

But he confirmed that the FATF Mutual Evaluation will take off
later this month and end in October.

The Mutual Evaluation is expected to provide information on the
progress made by Nigeria in meeting its obligations towards the
FATF demand for a complete set of counter-measures against money
laundering.

This covers the criminal justice system and law enforcement, the
financial system and its regulation and international
co-operation.

The FATF is a global body that sets standard for AML/CFT
efforts; like other previous evaluations for Nigeria, its team will
carry out random checks at the branches of selected banks and other
financial institutions across the country.

Also, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar
Malami (SAN), on Sunday denied alleged plans to screen the accounts
of judges and principal officers of the National Assembly.

Addressing reporters in Abuja, he said: “One thing I want to
categorically state and make clear is that the NFIU, by its
competency and capacity, is well placed to have information
relating to accounts of individuals and institutions without any
recourse to a third party.

“So, in effect, the idea of making a formal claim does not even
arise because the NFIU is the custodian of the information and it
is very well placed by law to analyse and have a very forensic
analysis of the information at their disposal.

“The NFIU had indeed issued a formal statement to the effect
that there was nothing of that nature taking place. There was no
investigation; no cause for such investigation as it is. And if
indeed there exists such a cause, there could have been no basis
for a formal request for it from institutions because it is the
institution that is legally, logically and inherently vested to do
the job.”

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