Twice this year (April 29 and June 21), President Goodluck Jonathan made a passionate appeal to Senate and House of Representatives to pass two executive bills that have to do with financing of terrorism and money laundering by the end of June at the latest.
The two draft pieces of legislation are: “A bill for an Act for measures to combat terrorism and for related matters and “A bill for an Act to repeal the money laundering (Prohibition Act 2004) and enact the money laundering (prohibition bill for related matters).” They two were first presented to the National Assembly in October, 2009 by late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua who gave his word to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international agency that monitors the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism, that the bills would become law by the end of that year.
That target was missed unfortunately. The protracted illness of Yar’adua and his eventual death in May this year meant the lobby to get the bills passed quickly lost momentum. It was perhaps understandable given the constitutional crisis created by Yar’adua’s long absence from office. The momentum was regained (or so it appeared) when Yar’adua’s successor Goodluck Jonathan wrote to the President of the Senate, David Mark and Speaker of the House, Dimeji Bankole, urging them to ensure the passage of the two bills before or on June 30, this year.
Almost two months later, the two bills still have not been passed. The House of Representatives that met on August 11 to consider the report of its Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, stood it down because “members disagreed on several of the clauses in the bills.” No detail was given. Nobody knows for certain the position of the bills in the Senate. What is certain is that both the urgency in the president’s plea and the economic as well as political implications of the delay in the passage of the bills were completely lost on the federal lawmakers. The message Mr. President has been desperate to send across to the leadership of the National Assembly is the open threat by the FATF to sanction Nigeria in the event that the two bills are not passed in good time. Should this be the case, it would convey the wrong message that we, as a country, are not committed to the fight against terrorism and money laundering. The two bills are meant to address this concern of the FATF which, we are told, has identified “strategic deficiencies in Nigeria’s anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism regime”. Given the involvement of a young Nigerian in a botched attempt to blow up an airliner in the United States on the eve of Christmas last year, this fear is not entirely misplaced.
It goes without saying that an FATF sanction will be devastating to us economically and politically. The economic damage will be that some countries will refuse to honour “financial instruments” such as letters of credit from Nigeria; foreign investors will be wary to invest in our economy and those who will want to dare will give “the most stringent of conditions”. Politically, our international image will suffer as we will be seen as a nation lacking the political will to cooperate in the global war on terror.
It is possible the National Assembly suspects arm-twisting of Nigeria by the FATF. And of course, we are for a thorough job on the bills. However, we know that a streamlined, implementable piece of legislation to fight money laundering and terrorism is in our enlightened self interest. The spate of kidnapping that has taken place in this country in recent times is nothing short of terrorism. The damage that corruption has done to our economy is unimaginable. Laundering the proceeds of corruption legitimises them and allows thieves to continue to bleed the country dry. It is against this backdrop that we urge the National Assembly to speed up the passage of the bills but making sure that it is the interest of Nigeria that will be served in the end.
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