Nigeria Has Not Done Well In Global Anti-Terrorism Financing Rating-Insurance Executive

 An insurance executive, Olufemi Awodimibola, has said that the country is yet to achieve its optimum in terms of its rating in global anti-terrorism financing. 

Awodimibola, the regional director, Leadway Assurance, Abuja region, made the assertion on Thursday while speaking with newsmen on the sideline of the one-day training programme organized by the Abuja Area Committee of the Nigerian Registered Insurance Brokers, NCRIB, for insurance stakeholders at the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. 

Awodimibola, who spoke in the face of current rating which places the country as a high risk country, observed that the country has more tasks to undertake before its rating at the international level will improve. According to him, the reason to improve the country’s international rating on the long run is one of the reasons his organization decided to organized the Abuja workshop in order to help stakes holders in the industry understand and perform their roles in line with extant regulatory laws. 

“I’m not sure we are good in respect to global rating. That is why we are having this meeting. We want to correct that and improve on our ratings.”

He noted that the event became imperative in view of the federal government’s financial inclusion policy which mandates every stakeholder in the financial and allied sectors to be part of the drive to stamp out attendant challenges in the country’s financial sector. 

“We need to have basic information for us to be able to under write a risk. It is often you don’t know who you are dealing with. One may be dealing with criminals. People can bring in funds from wherever to help launder. This kind of training is to help us educate stakeholders. We feel it is important to educate our stakeholders on the risks involved, for them to know how to deal with such situations,” he reiterated.

Babajide Bello, Chairman, NCRIB, Abuja Chapters, explained that the one-day seminar became very imperative in view of some of the transitions in the insurance which under-writers often overlook without realizing that they may be violating existing laws. The seminar, he explained, is meant to provide an up-to-date information that will put under-writers in good stead with necessary information.  

“There are times you do a transaction without knowing that it is against the law. But with this training underwriters are in a better position to have necessary information required to operate without violating the laws,” he told said.  

Resource person and keynote speaker, Obinna Okafor, urged participants to look out for these specific red lights, including ‘Smurfing’, when conducting their business to ensure that they are not caught unaware as, according to him, those who ignore the red lights will on their own when the day of reckoning comes. Highlighting a number of such red lights, he stressed that Smurfing in particular, allows criminals to launder money by breaking payments in order not to meet reporting threshold. 

Obinna, a certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and Managing Consultant/CEO of Vicosbin Consult Ltd, also spoke on proliferation financing, noting that underwriters need to be extra vigilant in oreder to detect these tricks as money launderers are willing to go the extra mile in introducing dirty money into the financial system in ways that may appear innocuous. 

The one-day seminar, a series of sensitization workshop for underwriters, took place at the Hotel De Horizon, Wuse II, Abuja