The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede has stated that Nigeria’s underdevelopment would be a thing of the past if everyone begins to see corruption as a common enemy and tackle it.
He stated this on Friday, January 31, 2025 when officials of the Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC), led by the Director of its Board of Trustees (BoT), Major General Chris Olukolade (retd) paid him a courtesy visit at the Commission’s corporate headquarters in Abuja.
According to him, one of the major problems in Nigeria which when tackled, will make underdevelopment a thing of the past, is corruption and financial crimes.
He said: “A society that is ready to move forward is a responsibility not only of the government, but of the citizens. This is what has actually led some of us to be very committed to this cause.
“We are ready to go the whole hog to do what we need to do within the confines and provisions of the law and the power that the Constitution has conferred on us. If everybody makes up his or her mind to do the right thing, we’ll move forward in this country.”
Olukoyede who expressed delight at the proposal of the CCC delegation for collaboration and synergy in the areas of strategic communication and public engagement, re-emphasised that the work and successes of the EFCC run on the wheels of public engagement and advocacy.
“We thank you for proposing a synergy and collaboration with us to support the work we do. One of the strong pillars of our mandate is the issue of public engagement and public advocacy. We will partner with you in that respect.
“We have so many projects and programmes with respect to letting the public know what we’re doing and we are doing everything possible to ensure that we create awareness on the part of Nigerians with respect to the need for us to be careful and play by the rules.
“However, it is so unfortunate that the same people who approbate also reprobate at the same time. Everybody is crying that Nigerians are corrupt, that the system is corrupt; that corruption is killing us and destroying our system, but when we investigate high profile cases and arraign people in court, the same people will carry placards and be supporting corrupt leaders.
“It doesn’t show that we are serious about this fight. The fight is supposed to be a collaborative effort. No single agency can do it alone. It is practically impossible for us as EFCC to fight all the battles. The society has a role to play; policy has a role to play and the issue of welfare of the citizens has a role to play,” he said.
Speaking on the trajectory of his leadership, he disclosed that he has prioritised prevention over enforcement since coming on board.
He explained that the Commission is now laying more emphasis on prevention which is a critical aspect of its mandate, adding that the EFCC does not have to wait for money to be stolen before acting.
Olukoyede stated that to drive prevention, he established a new directorate called Fraud Risk Assessment and Control (FRAC) and the EFCC is now doing more of blocking of the leakages.
“We have access to GIFMIS (government payment platform). We want to track and see where every money, released is going. We want to ensure that every capital project is executed. With prevention, we discovered that there will be less to enforce.
“We are not dropping our mandate on enforcement. As a matter of fact, we are scaling it up. But we believe that it is important for us to prevent because it costs less to prevent than to react when the deed must have been done. So that is one of our areas of focus as of now.”
Besides prevention, the EFCC boss also identified the leveraging of intelligence gathering as being instrumental to some of the recent successes of the Commission.
He enthused: “Some of the modest achievements we have recorded, particularly towards the last quarter of last year, have never been done anywhere in the world. Nowhere in the world, and no agency has anywhere made the recovery of one single real estate as large as what we did.
“It may not necessarily prove that corruption is increasing in Nigeria, but rather shows the proficiency of our system as an agency to track, trace and recover because that property has always been there. It shows our proficiency.
“Most of the work we do now is intelligence-driven. Part of my key policies is that investigation must be intelligence driven. There is the racket we bursted in Lagos that involved 194 foreigners, Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Tunisians, and Eastern Europeans, perpetrating fraud in Nigeria, using the identity of Nigerians to perpetrate fraud.
“In one single operation 792 were arrested with 184 foreigners. We started in the evening and stayed throughout the night. And there was no single casualty. The Abuja racket of about three or four weeks ago involved over a hundred foreigners. There was also no single casualty, but the one we had in Awka, just one, and everybody went to town as if it was no longer the same agency.
“So we are professional in what we do. We will do the little we can within the capacity and also the resources that are available to us. Operations cannot always be 100 percent perfect. One way or the other there could be casualties. We
pledge that we will continue to do what we in the best way to do it.”
Earlier, Major General Olukolade disclosed the desire of the CCC to work in partnership and collaboration with the EFCC in the areas of public advocacy and strategic communication.
He explained that the Centre is a body that works in close collaboration with the security architecture of the country and support government organisations from the point of view of a non-governmental organisation.
He also lauded the EFCC for its giant strides in the anti-corruption fight.
His words: “We want as a body to acknowledge the fact that the EFCC has continued to prove the relevance of his work to the Nigerian public. And we want to particularly acknowledge the fact that the renewed commitment of this organization to tackling economic and financial crimes, including the crackdown recently on high profile corruption practices, have been of great attention to us and we want to commend the agency for this renewed effort.
“We also particularly want to applaud the Commission’s proactive steps in investigating fraudulent activities, asset recovery and promoting the essence of transparency in governance through its anti graft operations.”
Touching on the dangers of the anti-corruption war, Olukolade said, “We know that all of this commitment should be drawing a lot of hot air and opposition from people with diverse interests. Our position for instance, as a body is that there’s no reason why anybody should be opposed to the logical efforts of EFCC if he is not guilty or sympathetic to the guilty.
“We want to urge the EFCC not to be deterred. You have supporters out there and we are at your disposal to support and promote the patriotic zeal that has been demonstrated here. You should not be discouraged, particularly with the renewed propaganda to discredit you or call some negative attention to this body.
He admonished the EFCC to be conscious of the antics of mischief makers and reassured the Commission of CCC’s absolute support.
