The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) on Monday in Abuja commenced a three-day stocktaking mutual evaluation meeting focused on converting financial intelligence into prosecutions and asset recovery.
The ICPC Chairman, Dr Musa Aliyu, SAN, said this at the opening of the exercise, held in preparation for Nigeria’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) 3rd Round Mutual Evaluation Exercise.
Aliyu, represented by the Commission’s Secretary, Mr Clifford Oparaodu, said the exercise would test how effectively ICPC investigations were converting financial intelligence into prosecutions, asset recovery and stronger enforcement outcomes.
He said the stocktake provided an internal mirror to measure performance under the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022, POCA 2022 and POCR 2024 regulations.
According to him, the Commission had in recent years made parallel financial investigations mandatory in every corruption case to strengthen the tracing of illicit funds and recovery efforts.
While stating that previous reviews focused largely on laws and policies, he said the stocktake would drill deeper into operational performance and assess Nigeria’s enforcement effectiveness.
He listed five Immediate Outcomes as benchmarks, emphasising that the exercise focused on FATF Immediate Outcomes 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 for institutional assessment.
He said these included risk understanding, international cooperation, financial intelligence use, effectiveness of money laundering investigations and asset recovery, adding that participants would assess operational implementation.
On corruption risks, he said participants would assess whether the ICPC and sister agencies were aligning investigations with Nigeria’s national risk profile and identified priority threats.
“We must show that our operations reflect where the real threats are, including bribery and grand corruption,” he said.
For cross-border crime, he said the team would review formal Mutual Legal Assistance channels and informal intelligence networks to assess Nigeria’s capacity for international cooperation.
The goal, according to him, was to demonstrate that Nigeria could swiftly share information, support investigations and secure convictions through effective cooperation with international partners.
“A major focus will be on financial intelligence under Immediate Outcome 6. The question before the room: are agencies not just generating reports, but actually using them to trace illicit flows and freeze assets before they disappear?”
He said enforcement would receive significant scrutiny under Immediate Outcomes 7 and 8, with Nigeria expected to demonstrate results from relevant money laundering laws and regulations.
“That means convictions, confiscations, and proper management of recovered assets,” he said, urging institutions to provide verifiable evidence of operational effectiveness during the stocktake exercise.
He urged visiting Country Experts to be blunt in their assessment, saying their feedback would help Nigeria close gaps, clean up statistics and sharpen strategies before the main evaluation.
He said the commission had aligned with the NFIU’s strategy by making parallel financial investigations mandatory in every corruption case handled by its investigators.
He added that the ICPC now leveraged the Corporate Affairs Commission Beneficial Ownership Register to expose corporate shells and strengthened systems for managing recovered assets.
He, however, warned that laws alone would not secure a good rating, stressing that effective implementation and measurable enforcement outcomes remained critical to Nigeria’s assessment.
“Technical compliance is only half the battle. What ultimately safeguards our financial system is demonstrating high operational effectiveness across these Immediate Outcomes,” he said.
He charged ICPC investigators and prosecutors to be candid and data-driven, while welcoming country experts to provide objective feedback that would help close gaps before the evaluation.
Speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of NFIU, Hajia Hafsat Bakari, said the exercise was designed to measure how effectively anti-corruption agencies converted financial intelligence into concrete enforcement outcomes.
Represented by Dr Emmanuel Sotande, an NFIU official, Bakari said the exercise was not about fault-finding but about assessing institutional preparedness ahead of Nigeria’s next FATF assessment.
“We want to be able to see how well the information and investigation lead to prosecution, seizure of assets and whether there’s a deterrent mechanism in place,” she said.
According to her, the core objective was to track the full value chain of intelligence use, from information supplied by the NFIU to enforcement outcomes.
“That includes how data supplied by the NFIU is consumed by the ICPC and other agencies, and whether it translates into convictions, asset recovery, and stronger deterrence against illicit financial flows.”
The NFIU boss emphasised that the timing was critical, noting that Nigeria was preparing for its 3rd Round Mutual Evaluation 2027 and needed institutional readiness.
“This is not a witch-hunt exercise but to ensure that we prepare for the next evaluation, which is going to be taking place next year.
“We want all institutional agencies and systems in Nigeria to be ready for the FATF assessors that will be coming from all parts of the world,” she said.
She explained that the framework for the stocktake was developed by the NFIU specifically to enable agencies to evaluate their preparedness and identify areas requiring improvement before assessment.
She said that assessors would demand detailed data and evidence, much of which the ICPC already held, making inter-agency coordination essential to Nigeria’s preparedness.
“It is in that context that the CEO of NFIU deems it fit to put the framework of the stocktake exercise in place for us to evaluate ourselves before the assessors will come,” she added.
She called for stronger collaboration, warning that the goal was to ensure Nigeria did not slip back onto the FATF grey list when the evaluation was concluded in 2027.
“The assessors will be asking for a lot of information, which I am sure the ICPC already have and it is only pertinent for us to work together,” she said.(NAN)
Edited by Abiemwense Moru