The federal government of Nigeria and the United Kingdom are set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at addressing crime, flooding, and other socio-economic challenges to promote mutual growth and cooperation.
A high-level UK delegation, led by the UK Minister of State, Rt. Hon. David Lord Hanson, is currently in Nigeria for the formal signing of the agreement.
Speaking during a visit to Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, in Abuja on Tuesday, Lord Hanson said the UK government is keen to collaborate with Nigeria in areas such as crime prevention, criminal justice reform, security, and migration management.
He noted that the partnership would focus on shared priorities essential to Nigeria’s development and long-term stability.
He said the National Crime Agency in UK is willing to help Nigeria combat frauds and other financial crimes that impede the development of Nigeria, stressing that UK government considered frauds as one critical area inhibiting rapid growth and development of the country.
Lord Hanson said the UK government had four major approaches to address fraud-related challenges, maintaining that fraud in whatever form affect trade, investment, reputation and perception of any country. He expressed the willingness of the UK government to tackle the challenges for the economic prosperity of Nigeria.
In his remarks, the Minister of Interior, Dr Tunji-Ojo praised the UK government for recently taking the lead by hosting the International Conference on Migration Management, saying that Nigeria would build on the take aways from the conference to address the challenges relating to the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea regions.
He said the present administration had instituted series of reforms, especially Passports, Visa, and expatriate quota to address challenges relating to migration management, regretting that one major obstacle regarding migration management is lack of unified centre for documentations.
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Tunji-Ojo said: “We have a situation at hand that gives rise to falsification of document or create frauds in the processing of documentation for travellers…there are no central poll for authentification of documents. If a person presents 20 documents that needed to be authentificated and you have 20 persons with such cases in a day, how would the system respond to 1,000 persons with 20 documents when there are no centralised poll for authentification.
“So this is part of the challenges, we are not blaming anybody. We will take responsibility for the liability. But regrettably a few of this challenges are being amplified at the expense of Nigeria…and we are addressing them because we aware that they are creating issues for trade and investment drive of the present administration.
“Mr President has given instruction that Nigeria should exit the grey list in Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) global classification on frauds, and very soon the country will move to the white list.
“The present administration through the Renewed Hope Agenda is keen on creating the biggest and most competitive economy in African, so all hands are on the deck to address the challenges of perception, reputation and other obstacles on our way.
“We are optimistic that the collaboration with the federal government by the UK government will be mutually beneficial to the two countries especially in areas clearly spelt out. The criminal justice system, migration management, fraud related issues are of great concerns to us and we appreciate the support of the UK government.”