ABUJA — A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Michael Numa, SAN, has thrown his weight behind making it compulsory for lawyers to verify the source of funds received from clients through the Know-Your-Client (KYC) procedure.
According to him, such a measure would not only align with anti-money laundering compliance requirements but also help the country fight corruption and entrench good corporate governance.
He disclosed that legal practitioners seeking to be conferred with the SAN rank must already be anti-money laundering compliant before their applications are considered.
Numa, SAN, spoke at a conference themed “Beyond Compliance: The Role of Stakeholders in Corporate Governance, Public Accountability, and Nigeria’s Institutional Future,” organised by the BNH Governance & Professional Network Forum.
He noted that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had, on October 24, 2025, officially removed Nigeria from its grey list, ending over two years of enhanced monitoring for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing deficiencies.
The senior lawyer maintained that the delisting resulted from the successful implementation of major legislative, institutional, and intelligence-sharing reforms.
“Nigeria’s exit from the grey list does not guarantee investment, but it stands as a perfect example of institutional reforms changing the external assessment of the country on compliance.
“It shows a level of transparency on the part of Nigeria and how the international community now perceives us, because of the decisive initiatives that were taken,” he added.
He noted that the National Assembly, through legislative reforms, had successfully overruled a Court of Appeal decision in a case between the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which had initially exempted lawyers who fulfilled the requirements of the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering (SCUML) from disclosing the sources of funds accruing to them as legal fees.
The SCUML was created to monitor, supervise, and regulate Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs) to prevent illegal financial flows.
“Now, you also have the obligation to do a KYC on how your fees are paid,” Numa, SAN, added, as he blamed poor corporate governance for increased hardship and corruption in the country, citing the fraudulent scheme perpetrated through Nigeria Air as an example.
Another senior lawyer, Mr. Oyetola Atoyebi, SAN, who also spoke at the conference, argued that governance is not solely a regulatory responsibility, insisting that professionals also have a role to play in bridging the gap.
“Legal practitioners, company secretaries, auditors, compliance professionals, risk professionals, accountants, and other governance advisers occupy a unique position at the point where regulatory standards meet institutional reality, and that position carries with it a significant responsibility.
“Our responsibility cannot end with identifying the relevant section of an Act, regulation, or code; professionals must translate it.
“We must help institutions understand not merely what the law says, but why the requirement exists, what risk it is intended to address, what governance outcome it seeks to achieve, what meaningful implementation looks like, and how its underlying principle should guide decisions in circumstances that legislation may never have expressly contemplated. This is where professional judgment becomes critical.
“A professional who merely identifies the applicable provision may provide technically accurate advice, but a professional who can explain the implications of that provision, anticipate governance risks, challenge institutional assumptions, and recommend a course of action that protects both compliance and institutional integrity is providing something much more valuable.
“The professional, therefore, should not merely be a translator of rules; the professional must increasingly become a translator of governance principles into institutional behaviour. And perhaps that is one of the most important responsibilities of our generation of professionals: not merely to tell institutions what the law permits, but to help them understand what responsible governance requires,” he added.
Among the dignitaries at the event were the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Dr. Adebowale A. Adedokun; the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Capital Market and Institutions, Senator Osita Izunaso; as well as the Deputy Dean, Faculty of Law at Baze University, Prof. Effiong Asukwo Esu.
In her welcome address, the representative of the BNH group, Maryam El-Yakub, said the conference was a determined effort towards ensuring that the issue of good governance is seen as a shared responsibility between the public and private sectors of the country’s economy.
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