2023 Election: Trouble Looms As EFCC Discloses Hierarchy of Top Entities on Watch List
- Investigations are ongoing on some powerful entities in the build-up to the 2023 general election
- EFCC boss Abdulrasheed Bawa confirmed this on Tuesday, October 25, in Lagos during an interface with some selected journalists
- He revealed that top politicians, legal practitioners, real estate operators, and other high-profile entities were on their watchlists
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In the build-up to the 2023 general elections, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it has commenced an investigation on some top politicians.
As reported by Daily Nigerian, the commission’s chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, disclosed this in Lagos on Tuesday, October 25, at a workshop on financial crimes reportage organised for some selected journalists.
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Bawa, while speaking at the workshop, further revealed that the commission has begun to track and take note of some high-profile entities in Nigeria in the build-up to the election.
He listed some of them as top politicians, legal practitioners, estate operators, precious stone dealers, accountants, construction companies, and many others.
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“Journalists must be inclined with money laundering law” - Bawa
Bawa also brought to the notice of the participating journalists that a portion of the law is called the “Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.”
He said journalists must be inclined with these laws so that they will not be found guilty of violating them while reporting news stories on money laundering.
He said:
“I am sure that most of us are aware of the legislative reforms that recently birthed the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
“There are certain provisions of this new law that I believe will affect you directly or indirectly. One is secrecy of financial transactions.
“The new law criminalises the operation of numbered accounts and also mandates financial institutions to ascertain the beneficial owners of accounts before opening such accounts.”
Some of the participating journalists were selected from the judicial beat, crime beat, and financial beat.
Some of the papers presented at the workshop include challenges of prosecuting economic and financial crimes in Nigeria, best practices in financial crimes reporting and peculiarities, trends, typologies, and the challenges of cybercrime enforcement in Nigeria.
EFCC re-arraigns suspended AGF Ahmed Idris over N109 billion fraud
In another development, the federal high court sitting in Maitama-Abuja has reinstated the bail of the suspended accountant-general of the federation, Ahmed Idris.
Idris, alongside three other defendants, was re-arraigned by the EFCC for an alleged fraud of N109.5 billion.
However, the court has ordered Idris and his alleged accomplice to submit their traveling passports to the court registry.
Source: Legit.ng
