And if Nigeria fails to comply with the group’s demands for a legal framework granting autonomy to the NFIU by January 2018, the country will be expelled from the global body which provides the backbone for monitoring international money laundering activities.
In the event of an expulsion, Nigeria will no longer be able to benefit from financial intelligence shared by the other 153 member countries, including the US and the UK, while the country’s ability to recover stolen funds abroad will also be hampered.
The federal government is currently seeking to recover funds laundered globally by politically exposed persons and their associates.
Another major dire consequence will be the blacklisting of Nigeria in international finance, and this could affect the issuance of Mastercard and Visa credit and debit cards by Nigerian banks.
It could also affect the international rating of Nigerian financial institutions, restricting their access to some big-ticket international transactions.
Nigeria’s admittance into the group in 2007 is considered to be one of the biggest achievements of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.
The membership ensured the removal of Nigerian banks from the blacklist of international finance.
The blacklisting had prevented the banks from engaging in correspondent banking with foreign institutions and also denied Nigerians access to foreign credit cards.
“It was one hell of a struggle to get Nigeria as a member,” a former senior official of the Obasanjo administration told TheCable on Tuesday.
“The suspension is a massive blow. It is going to set us back by a number of years because it is not easy to get admitted into the group. I hope things are still redeemable before it ends in an expulsion.”
The Egmont Group is a body of 154 financial intelligence units (FIUs) across the world.
It provides a platform for the secure exchange of expertise and financial intelligence to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
Nigeria joined the group on an operational basis on January 1, 2005 and became a full member on June 1, 2007.
The group mandates countries to establish a financial intelligence unit that serves as a national centre for the receipt and analysis of (1) suspicious transaction reports; and (2) other information relevant to money laundering, associated predicate offences and financing of terrorism, and for the dissemination of the results of that analysis.
As a member of the group, the NFIU can access the bank accounts of persons of interest in all the other 153 member countries.
All advanced countries are members of the group, which is an initiative of the American government. - Cable Nigeria
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