NFIU: We won Egmont Award for excellence in intelligence cases

The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) says it emerged best in intelligence cases nomination among the 164 country-membership of the Egmont Group.

According to a statement on Saturday, Ahmed Dikko, NFIU chief media analyst, said the unit was given the BECA award of excellence, which is the highest distinction for excellence and is sponsored jointly by the World Bank and the United Nations.

The award was received on Thursday during the plenary of global financial intelligence units group in Riga, Latvia.

“At the same occasion, the NFIU also received the Egmont Group certificate of appreciation for offering its ICT Team to work and redevelop its global intelligence exchange software, which the Plenary also approved to replace the earlier version developed by the U.S,” the statement reads.

Dikko said while commending the unit, Jerome Beaumont, French national and executive secretary of the group, described the NFIU as “a team with highly knowledgeable and very efficient personnel”.

“This is not the first time the NFIU is getting these international awards this year, at the end of May 2022 in Senegal, the Unit won 3 different awards from ECOWAS,” Dikko said.

“The Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), gave the NFIU a star award for mentorship, as well as two other awards for  “valuable contribution to the region” and a third one in collaboration achievement.”

Commenting on the awards, Modibbo Tukur, CEO of the NFIU, said it was possible because the unit is committed to building staff capacity.

“We tried to assemble the best team from day one,” he said.

“We moulded each staff into becoming a technician of himself. We niched ourselves into the global intelligence community. Once you come to us we always try to give you exactly what you are looking for.

“We also spend all our money on training our staff. We train our staff in West Africa and other places in the continent such as Kenya and Tanzania. My staff are always on their way to the U.S, UK, and Israel. We sent our staff to even Saudi Arabia, we are in Austria, Hungary etc.

“We are constantly understudying the world. Once you assume duty at the NFIU, we stretch you out on your capacity from day one until we know what you are best for, then we start intensifying in best practices and modern techniques. So, each staff is well stretched out and made a resource person. But again, like every organisation in the country, we have serious challenges.”