Shina Abubakar, Osogbo

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Professor Adekunle Adedeji has stressed the need for civil society organisations, CSOs, to comply with regulatory agency guidelines to minimize incidents of terror financing.

Speaking with newsmen during a two-day regulatory compliance training for CSOs on civic space strengthening in Osun State held at LAIM Hotel, Osogbo, said not complying with regulatory guidelines could get non profit organisations into big trouble.

His words, “NGOs particularly have been advised to subscribe to what is called the sanctions list, the Nigerian sanctions list, and to check, to update themselves regularly on who or what organization have been proscribed or are facing sanctions, and to steer clear of such organisations.

“Many NGOs, for instance, go to Bureau de Change, When they receive money from abroad, due to the economy, they are not restricted in the way you change that. You don’t have to change that in a bank. But you need to go to a licensed organization. My advice to such NGOs is better check the sanctions list to know that whoever you are dealing with as a BDC is not facing sanctions or has not been proscribed.

“You need to know who you are dealing with. So NGOs should also adopt customer due diligence or client’s due diligence. That is, you know who you are giving money to, you know who you are receiving from and if somebody is giving you money and has strings attached to it that are suspicious, you must report to the authorities”.

Also speaking, the Programme officer of Global Rights, Edosa Oviawe disclosed that the training which was sponsored by the European Union targeted at arming CSOs/NGOs with proper knowledge on complying with regulatory guidelines.

According to him, 30 CSOs/NGOs were trained on not just trained on compliance but also in organisational administration to give male them more effective.

“Many NGOs/CSOs were tagged or proscribed for alleged terrorism financing because they are not regulator-compliance. Most of these organisations were caught in the web because of their lack of knowledge on compliance, hence, this training is aimed at exposing them to the necessary scope on complying with agency guidelines, such as the EFCC and others”.

One of the beneficiaries, Busayo Obisakin disclosed that the training has widen her knowledge and that of others on the necessity of complying with regulatory guidelines, saying she would become an advocate for strengthening regulatory compliance among CSOs in the state.