EFCC and financial intelligence agency review readiness for 2027 FATF assessment

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit have begun a three-day review of Nigeria’s preparations for the Financial Action Task Force’s 2027 mutual evaluation. The exercise began at the EFCC headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday and is scheduled to continue on September 30 and October 2. It brings together officials from both agencies and other relevant stakeholders.

The review is intended to assess progress, identify gaps and improve cooperation on measures against money laundering and terrorist financing. It comes after Nigeria’s removal from the FATF grey list last year. The FATF said Nigeria had made significant progress when it announced the country’s removal on October 24, 2025.

It cited improvements in risk assessment, international cooperation, supervision, beneficial-ownership information and use of financial intelligence. EFCC Chairperson Ola Olukoyede, represented by the commission’s secretary, Muhammad Hammajoda, said the stocktake demonstrated a shared commitment to meeting international standards. He identified financial intelligence, asset tracing, recovery, investigation and prosecution as issues under review.

Olukoyede warned that Nigeria must avoid returning to the grey list. He said the EFCC had expanded anti-money-laundering enforcement and recovered proceeds of crime under the Recovery and Management Act 2022. NFIU chief executive Hafsat Abubakar Bakari, represented by Emmanuel Sotande, said the exercise was not prompted by a crisis.

She said it would help the agencies determine what was working and agree on actions to improve performance. Bakari said assessors would examine evidence of effective investigations, prosecutions, asset recovery, inter-agency cooperation and intelligence use, rather than laws and institutional structures alone.