The hypocrisy of global financial system which provide shield for illicit flow of funds laundered from developing nations has been largely blamed for the lingering intractable efforts to surmount global terrorism.
This, coupled with powerful criminal networks that channels money to terrorist groups, have combined to make nonsense of plans to completely obliterate the threat of terrorism and other organized criminal activities.
This is just as the invention of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is said to provide an unprecedented levels of discreetness preferred by these criminal networks.
To tackle the menace, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has posited that only a well planned global action to check terrorism through blockade of illicit fund flow and money laundering.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) 18th Ministerial Committee meeting, which held at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja, Nigeria, on Saturday, Osinbajo also challenged managers of African economies to treat money laundering and other financial crimes with zero tolerance to maintain and sustain economic, financial and political stability
“We have for long enough affirmed our commitment as a sub-region to fighting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. We must now back this intent with forceful action and visible results,”
The Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) has been at the forefront in supporting member States to implement programmes and policies on Anti-Money laundering and terrorist financing measures
GIABA which has been working with the 15 member ECOWAS countries and Sao Tome & Principe) with the mandate to eradicate Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing from region, regularly assesses and evaluate member states on their implementation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)
The body recognizes more Laundering and Terrorist Financing as crimes that have significant ramifications for the security and wellbeing of member countries.
Nigeria has lost an estimated 20,000 lives to terrorism propagated by Boko Haram, and more than 2 million persons displaced.
One of question arising from the conference is how the once-obscure unknown Boko Haram sect, domiciled primarily in a single city in Northern Nigeria, evolve to become, at one point, a menace, not only to the country but to the entire Lake Chad Basin
The sect is said to have and may still be thriving on some yet to be identified source of illicit funds wired from unknown web of finances through powerful criminal network.
Osinbajo blamed this on what he calls “complicated multinational networks of financing that sustained the group and nurtured its hateful vision” adding that ” there is absolutely no way that Boko Haram would have grown as dangerous as it did without access to funding and resources, mobilized from far and wide”
According to him, “It is clear that without dealing a lethal blow to those powerful criminal networks that funnel money to terrorist groups, we cannot reasonably hope to completely obliterate the threat of terrorism and other organized criminal activity in our sub-region”
Boko Haram remains a typical example of how much evil can be done by a subversive group that has figured out how to raise money in the shadows.
“There are many others like it, with similar or different goals, all of them united by the need to raise financing to achieve their aims”
Osinbajo noted that the ” lines between terrorist groups, corrupt politicians, traffickers (whether of drugs, guns or people); fraudsters; smugglers; kidnappers; illegal oil bunkerers, etc, have always been blurry;” adding that “these groups have always found complementary need for one another’s tactics and strategies. Indeed, if there’s one thing that the world’s deadliest terrorist groups, from Al Qaeda to ISIS to Al-Shabaab, have in common, it is the ease and expertise with which they diversify their criminal activity while retaining their overarching goal of inflicting maximum devastation.”
The ever evolving Cyberspace has made it easier for criminal syndicates to not only draw inspiration and learning from one another, but to also devise increasingly complex means of fundraising and of bypassing conventional financial system checkpoints and safeguards
The result is that financial crime is able to always stay a few steps ahead of governments and the law.
The challenge of anonymous corporate ownership, as revealed by the Panama Papers and now the Paradise papers clearly illustrate the global scale and spread of this problem. So this is a global challenge and nothing less than a truly global approach will be needed to tackle it.
Osinbajo who commended countries like the United Kingdom, Norway, Netherlands and Denmark for leading the way in establishing public registers of the real, human owners of companies in their countries, also appealed to other G8 and G20 countries not only to follow suit but also to initiate actions to end corporate secrecy in some of their dependencies.
“We cannot have anonymous ownership of companies, trusts and other arrangements designed to cover ownership of assets, and at the same time expect optimal results from anti-money laundering measures.”
Member states of the GIABA (the 15 ECOWAS countries, and Sao Tome & Principe) have gathered here in Abuja under the auspices of GIABA to evaluate their respective AML/CFT regimes and share experiences on the way forward in tackling these financial crimes.
Tony Ailemen, Abuja
