The Acting Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF), Augustine Onwudili, has commended the President for signing the bill establishing the Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN) into law.
He said with this, Nigeria has taken a bold step towards eradicating corruption and financial crimes in the country.
Onwudili, who stated this at the first-year general meeting of CIFCFIN in Abuja, declared: “Wherever there is fraud or wherever they are committing fraud all over the world, the first place they go to for auditing is the Auditor-General’s office and how can we as auditors unravel these frauds? It is through forensics, and this is where the Chartered Institute of Forensics comes in. The investigators are the ones that will be able to unravel fraud errors and bring offenders to book.”
Also speaking, the former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Adetokunbo Kayode, who swore in the President, Vice Presidents and members of Governing Council of the Institute, said CIFCFIN would help to reduce financial fraud and all types of frauds in the various sectors of the economy.
“All over the world today, financial fraud costs the economy hundreds of billions of dollars. In Nigeria, not less than $2 or $ 3 billion are lost to fraud every year. And not all of them will necessarily get to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) level. Some of them are at corporate level. It will be easy for the organisation to ask the investigators to help them, not only to investigate but to control, reduce and stop the possibility of this.”
Kayode said CIFCFIN will be involved in scientific investigations and support the police and other investigative agencies in their investigations and “so many other areas: medical, engineering, and so on, and so forth. It is a multi-sector and multi-disciplinary Institute.”
On his part, Chairman of the EFCC, represented by the Commandant of EFCC Academy, Ayo Olowonihi, said the debilitating effects of economic and financial crimes, and indeed corruption in Nigeria, made it expedient for the agency to always partner with Institutes, such as CIFCFIN.
“We are delighted to be a partner with them. And we will encourage all members to please partner with them,” he stated.
He said the EFCC is looking at Institutes like CIFCFIN to conduct research into causes and possible solutions to financial crimes. “That, indeed, is why the EFCC will like to partner with Institutes like CIFCFIN. The mandate of the EFCC is to investigate, prosecute and enlighten Nigerians about economic and financial crimes.
And with an Institute like this coming up, we believe that there will be research into causes and effect of financial crimes. We receive information from them and we act on such information from them. That is the synergy that can exist between the EFCC and CIFCFIN,” he said.
Meanwhile, the President of the Institute, Dr. Iliyasu Gashinbaki, said that by signing the CIFCFIN bill into law, the President has inaugurated the era of scientific investigations in Nigeria, adding: “Now, forensics entail the deployment of science and technology in investigations; very soon you will see that prosecution rates will be higher, delay in court cases will be a thing in the past, and even the challenges we have within the digital space in our electoral process. With this Institute, we will have a better Nigeria.”
The 1st Annual General Meeting of Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN), which took on Wednesday, March 29, 2023 approved four critical Regulations:
Governance Regulation, Membership Regulation, the Regulation for the College of Forensics and Fraud Investigation and the Bye-Laws for the Operations of its partners.
Source: The Guardian
(Learn more about the Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN), https://cifipn.org/home/)
