The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has commenced a three-day stocktake meeting focused on converting financial intelligence into prosecutions, asset recovery and stronger enforcement outcomes.
The ICPC Chairman, Dr Musa Aliyu, SAN, disclosed this at the opening of the exercise, organised in conjunction with the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) as part of preparations for Nigeria’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Third Round Mutual Evaluation Exercise.
Represented by the Commission’s Secretary, Mr Clifford Oparaodu, Aliyu said the exercise would assess how effectively ICPC investigations were translating financial intelligence into prosecutions, asset recovery and other measurable enforcement outcomes.
He said the stocktake would provide an “internal mirror” through which the commission could measure its performance under the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022, Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Act (POCA) 2022 and Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Regulations (POCR) 2024.
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 improve asset recovery.
While previous reviews had focused largely on laws and policies, he said the current stocktake would go deeper into operational performance and assess Nigeria’s enforcement effectiveness.
He said the exercise would use five FATF Immediate Outcomes—1, 2, 6, 7 and 8—as benchmarks for the institutional assessment.
The outcomes cover areas including risk understanding, international cooperation, the use of financial intelligence, the effectiveness of money laundering investigations and asset recovery.
Aliyu said participants would assess whether the ICPC and sister agencies were aligning their 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.
On cross-border financial crimes, he said the exercise would review both formal Mutual Legal Assistance channels and informal intelligence networks to assess Nigeria’s capacity for international cooperation.
The objective, he said, 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 tangible results from the implementation of 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.
Aliyu urged the visiting Country Experts to be frank in their assessments, saying their feedback would enable Nigeria to close identified gaps, reconcile statistics and sharpen its strategies before the main evaluation.
He said the ICPC 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 commission was now leveraging the Corporate Affairs Commission’s Beneficial Ownership Register to expose corporate shells and had strengthened its systems for managing recovered assets.
The ICPC chairman, however, warned that laws alone would not guarantee a favourable assessment, stressing that effective implementation and measurable enforcement outcomes remained critical to Nigeria’s rating.
“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 urging the Country Experts to provide objective feedback that would help the commission close existing gaps before the evaluation.
Speaking at the event, the Chief Executive Officer of the NFIU, Hajia Hafsat Bakari, said the exercise was designed to measure how effectively anti-corruption agencies were converting financial intelligence into concrete enforcement outcomes.
Represented by an NFIU official, Dr Emmanuel Sotande, Bakari said the exercise was not aimed at fault-finding but at 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 chief stressed that the timing of the exercise was critical, noting that Nigeria was preparing for its Third Round Mutual Evaluation in 2027 and needed to ensure 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 assess their preparedness and identify areas requiring improvement before the evaluation.
She said assessors would demand detailed data and evidence, much of which the ICPC already had, 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 among relevant agencies, warning that the objective was to ensure Nigeria did not slip back onto the FATF grey list when the evaluation is 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.
