Countering Terrorism and Criminal Financing in Nigeria : Strategic Options

This work is the analysis of Nigeria’s efforts to counter terrorism and criminal financing (TCF). It shows that criminal and terrorist groups in the country fund their operations through illegal financial infrastructure embedded in the Nigerian financial sector. To counter and deny this malign non-state actors access to funds that could be used to destabilize the state and compromise the integrity of financial institutions in the country, Nigeria deployed several strategies. By using qualitative research methodology, and historical, descriptive and narrative styles, the research discovered that Nigeria used both institutional (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission - EFCC and Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit - NFIU) and legal-cum-financial (Terrorism Prevention Amendment Act – TPAA and Anti Money Laundering/ Combating Financing of Terrorism - AML/CFT) instruments to disrupt TCF in the country. In its conclusion, the work argues that Nigeria will have to be strategic in its response if it hopes to effectively counter TCF. This strategic response, the work discovers, will involve the extensive use of the technical and financial expertise of international anti-money laundering bodies like the EGMONT Group and Financial Action Task Force (FATF)