Weak financial regulations promoting insecurity, say experts

.Christian elders seek urgent action on terrorism

Anti-corruption stakeholders have blamed weak financial regulations for the increase in terrorism activities across Nigeria, stressing the need for a unified database and stricter monitoring of Bureau de Change (BDC) operations.

According to them, improving reporting and documentation, especially the activities of designated non-financial institutions and businesses would strengthen the nation’s lax financial regulations and track terrorism sponsors.

The experts raised the concerns at a post-intervention roundtable on reporting Suspicious Transactions and Suspicious Activities by Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions, organised by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IIDEA), supported by the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC) and Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) in Abuja.

Even with one of the strongest legislation in the world regarding tackling illicit financial flows, experts believe that limited access to beneficial ownership information and inability to factor in activities of designated non-financial institutions and businesses in Nigeria such as BDC operators would slow actions to strengthen the financial regulation system in the country.

Head of Development Partnerships Projects, Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Faisal Dikko, maintained that until there is a database accessible by all parties in tracking illicit financial flows, the challenge of inefficiency would subsist.

According to him, all hands must be on deck to show effectiveness in matters relating to Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT).

He said: “It will be a major hindrance. It is going to be a challenge any which way, because at the end of the day when it comes to AML CFT matters, you have to show effectiveness. And this is where we find ourselves with a little bit of challenge.”

On terrorism financing and insecurity in Nigeria, Anti-corruption Programme Manager at International IDEA, Emmanuel Uche, disclosed that the evaluation carried out on the country revealed that the nation’s challenges, including kidnapping, terrorism and insecurity, keep growing due to the weak financial regulation system in place.

He added that a sore point in the loose link is the activity of BDC operators.

Besides, National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) has decried activities of terrorists and how they displace indigenous ethnic nationalities from ancestral lands for
Foreigners to occupy.

In a virtual conference with the theme: “State of the nation: Racial displacement invasion,” the group lamented that owners of land end up as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in their own country.

In a statement by its secretary, Bosun Emmanuel, the body decried the relentless attacks and the inability of the government to check them.

Calling for immediate steps to halt further destruction of lives and properties, NCEF advocated a new Constitution for the country.

It said: “Rather than an amended Constitution, the Christian elders align with the conference’s resolution of the Patriots Group in March 2024 that Nigeria requires a new Constitution, not an amended one. The new Constitution would devolve power, which is currently concentrated at the centre, to the federating units, and enable them to take charge of their security.”

The participants called on the ethnic nationalities to mobilise for a new Constitution.