The National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) has announced it will look to collaborate with the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) in an attempt to mitigate the risk of users playing on unregulated sites.
Both the NLRC and the NFIU will look to fight against the challenges of remote gaming, which has proven to be a growing issue for Nigeria’s lottery and gaming industry, particularly when it comes to ‘financial leakages’ according to the Director-General of the NLRC, Lanre Gbajabiamila.
An indication of the collaboration was hinted by Gbajabiamila during a call with the Director/CEO of the NFIU, Modibbo Hammam Tukur in Abuja.
Gbajabiamila stated: “We know that working with partners helps bring together available resources for the purpose of achieving more impact, greater sustainability and increased value to all stakeholders. Today the National Lottery Regulatory Commission is proud to call NFIU our partner. Recently, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NFIU that aims to combat money laundering and terrorism financing in the Nigerian Gaming sector.
“Our alliance and mutual cooperation are now more imperative, and as responsible agencies, it is our duty to keep pace with the dynamic and growing complexity of the modern lottery industry which features multi-channel availability, the electronic delivery of play, and complex financial transactions. Our MOU marks an important milestone in this effort and ushers in an unprecedented level of mutual cooperation between our agencies.”
According to a statement by the NLRC, Tukur has highlighted his unit’s willingness to collaborate with the organisation in order to tackle ‘illicit financial practices within the lottery industry’. Additionally, the NLRC will integrate some of its activities into the NFIU systems in order to fully join forces against remote gaming.
During the call Tukur advised that the NLRC identifies the areas that need NFIU assistance whilst also stating that sectors relating to capital flight, tax eversion, non-disclosure of financial transactions, movement of illicit funds, irregularity in forex transactions and movements are areas that can ‘be easily identified and dealt with’.
Finally, Tukar was optimistic during the call that the new collaboration would benefit both argenies and the nation as a whole.
