By Johnbosco Agbakwuru
THE National Lottery Regulatory Commission, NLRC, and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU have agreed to put an end to the poaching of bettors from Nigerian space without recourse to the enabling regulatory laws of the country.
The collaboration is in bid to give more impetus to the fight against remote gaming.
This was disclosed by the Director-General of the NLRC, Mr. Lanre Gbajabiamila during a courtesy call on the Director/CEO of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, Mr. Modibbo Hammam Tukur in Abuja.
Mr. Gbajabiamila said that remote gaming had been a challenge in the Nigerian Lottery and Gaming industry, stressing that the commission would not rest until it overcomes the challenges of financial leakages occasioned by remote gaming.
He said that the NLRC has been involved in a number of strategic collaborations on how to strengthen the operations of the Commission, identifying partnership as a catalyst to the success of the Commission’s mandate.
According to him, “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 is 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, 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.”
Earlier, the Director/CEO of the NFIU, Mr. Modibbo Tukur stated the readiness of his Unit to synergize with the NLRC in fighting especially illicit financial practices within the lottery industry. He said specific aspects of NLRC’s activities would be integrated into the NFIU systems to give full effects to the collaboration.
Tukur said issues of capital flight, tax eversion, non-disclosure of financial transactions, movement of illicit funds, irregularity in forex transactions and movements could be easily identified and dealt with.
He advised the NLRC to identify areas of its operations that needed full integration to the NFIU systems.
He further expressed his optimism that the NLRC/NFIU collaborations would ensure great benefits, not only to both agencies but to all Nigerians.
