‘Forensics Bill’ ll combat corruption’

By Ozolua Uhakheme

The fight against corruption will receive a boost as soon as the bill for the establishment of Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Examiners is passed into law, according to President/Chairman Council of the Institute, Dr. Iliyasu Gashinbaki.

The bill, which is promoted by Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) scaled second reading at the House of Representatives, on April 29, 2021.

Gashinbaki said the passage of the bill into law will be the best gift the Ninth National Assembly will give to Nigerians as a way of rooting out fraud and corruption in the country. “We don’t have a chartered professional body in Nigeria responsible for fraud examination and forensics, and that is why this institute is not just coming at the right time, but it is the right thing for Nigerians who have institute of this nature that will train independent professionals, not government funded, but an independent professional body that will be focused on capacity building of forensic professionals and fraud examiners to provide water tight evidence to secure convictions in courts,” said.

He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to give quick assent to the bill once the National Assembly presents it to him as it will be one of his major legacies in curbing corruption in Nigeria. “President Olusegun Obasanjo gave Nigerians EFCC and ICPC. President Buhari should give this to Nigerians,” he added.

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According to Gashinbaki, the institute will be responsible for institutional strengthening of law enforcement agencies like the ICPC, EFCC and the Police to carry out diligent prosecutions.

“Accountants by doing their job do not necessarily isolate that entity from fraud because criminals are always ahead of regulators or any system put in place. That is why you need the special skill of a forensic expert and fraud examiner to unravel the fraud. What I can guarantee is that this body will significantly reduce the quantum of fraud both in the public and private sector.”

So ultimately this bill when passed into law will complement our law enforcement agencies so that what they are doing, they will do better,” he noted.

On what the institute will do differently to cage corruption and fraud in Nigeria, he said: “What we intend to do now is to create the Nigerian Forensic Academy and once the bill becomes law, we will have the Academy affiliated to the ANAN University to build capacity of the tertiary institutions. The idea is to upgrade it to a regional University in Africa because what we are doing has never been done in Africa. We are combining two great areas – which is the area of fraud examination and forensics being fused under one canopy. Also, because this body is multidisciplinary, we will have under it diverse professionals in forensic architecture, criminology, law, sociology, psychology, medicine and so on to deal with various ramification of fraud and that also gives us the scope and competency to deal with the broad diversity of our economy and growing complexities.”

Gashinbaki believes that the institute in the next 10 years will change the perception of Nigeria as a corrupt country to one in the vanguard of checkmating it.