The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has scored the highest points and emerged as the best in best intelligence cases nomination among the 164 countries membership of the Egmont Group.
The agency won the highest award of excellence also called the BECA award of excellence jointly sponsored by the World Bank and the United Nations (UN).
The NFIU’s Chief Media Analyst, Ahmed Dikko, made this known on Saturday in a statement in Abuja
Dikko said that 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,” he said.
According to him, while commending the NFIU, Mr Jerome Beaumont, a French National and Executive Secretary of the group, described it as “a team with highly knowledgeable and very efficient personnel.”
Dikko also said that the agency’s Director/CEO, Mr Modibbo Tukur, while commenting on the feat of winning five highest international awards in West Africa and the world within a period of three months, said “we tried to assemble the best team from day one.
“‘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,” Tukur said in the statement.
The director added that, “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.”
Tukur, who said the agency is constantly understudying the world, however said that NFIU, like every organisation in the country, had its challenges.
“Our major challenge is that the traditional organisations and platforms in the country are not cooperating well when it comes to operational duties.
“There is no interagency collaboration and synergy in areas of national security. I hope it would be overcome one day,” Tukur said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that NFIU, within the year, won three different awards from ECOWAS.
“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 three different awards from ECOWAS.
“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,” the statement concluded.
