Tunde Bakare
The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede has described asset recovery as pivotal in the fight against economic and financial crimes and a major disincentive against corrupt practices.
He stated this in Abuja on Tuesday, November 12, 2024 while addressing members of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes who visited the corporate headquarters of the EFCC on oversight duties.
According to him, “If you understand the intricacies involved in financial crimes investigation and prosecution, you will discover that to recover one billion naira is war. So I told my people that the moment we start investigation, we must also start asset tracing because asset recovery is pivotal in the anti-corruption fight.
“ If you allow the corrupt or those that you are investigating to have access to the proceeds of their crime, they will fight you with it. So one of the ways to weaken them is to deprive them of the proceeds of their crime. So, our modus operandi has changed tremendously. The moment we begin investigation, we begin asset tracing. That was what helped us to make our recoveries.”
Speaking further, he pointed out that no fight against corruption, economic and financial crimes could be effective if it did not energize the economy. “As I made it known on the floor of the Senate in the course of my confirmation last year, the essence of the EFCC mandate is to move Nigeria forward. And I made known my three policy objectives. So, we have embarked on these since October last year with the help of my management team and the entire EFCC staff, and I am happy to announce to you that between October last year and October this year we were able to recover about N250billion in cash, tens of millions of dollars, tens of millions of pounds sterling and other currencies.”
He explained that the Commission equally put up a command performance in the area of convictions, amassing about 3500 convictions in the period spanning from October 18, 2023 to October 18, 2024. “In the area of convictions we have done over 3000 and we also want to re-orientate your minds that it is not only yahoo yahoo. We have evidence, we have many high profile cases in which we secured convictions. I wish to remind everyone that this issue of yahoo yahoo thing that some people are treating with kid gloves is a crime that cost the nation over $500000 (Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) in one year and that is what some people are joking about. We expect all these because it is obvious that when you fight corruption, corruption will fight back. But we are not really perturbed. We will continue to work irrespective of what people say about us, what we know within ourselves is that we will continue to do this work within the limit of our resources and be committed to it.”
In the aspects of the corruption and fraud prevention mandate of the EFCC, Olukoyede disclosed to the Committee that the Commission within the last one year had emphasized prevention more than ever before and it is set to achieve better and more cost efficient results with it. “ I believe that the best way of fighting corruption is to prevent it. In the past one year, we have had cause to establish a new Directorate called Fraud Risk Assessment and Control (FRAC). The mandate of this Directorate is to work with the Office of the Accountant General to look at the financial releases and go into the MDAs and monitor the implementation of projects because in the last 20 years we discovered that we have not done up to 20 per cent of our capital project implementation and execution. So, our focus this year is to work with the new Directorate and the National Assembly to see if we can meet up to 50 per cent execution of our capital projects. If we do 50 per cent we will be fine as a nation.”
Olukoyede also touched on the workload of the Commission, noting that “apart from the convictions, we have several cases filed in court. In the last one year, we received over 17,000 petitions and right now, we are investigating over 20,000 cases. Between October 2023 and now, we have opened new case files of over 4800”, he said.
Speaking on behalf of the House Committee, its Chairman, Honourable Ginger Obinna Onwusibe disclosed that the legislators were impressed with EFCC’s budget implementation and outcomes. He promised that the Committee and the National Assembly would rally behind the Commission with enhanced appropriation in the 2025 budget year in order to help it achieve even more.
“The Committee is impressed with what it has seen. All we need to do is to support the EFCC so that it can continue the fight against corruption and financial crime, which it has been saddled with. We are impressed, so we thank the Chairman and his team for the wonderful job that they are doing here for Nigerians. The EFCC Chairman has shown boldness in fighting crime with no compromise and not looking at anybody’s face on the basis of ethnicity and political party affiliation.
“ Once you have stolen money, he tells you that it is sandpaper that cannot be digested. The major challenge is resources and the Constitution has saddled on our shoulders the power of appropriation so we are going to ensure that the Commission gets enough resources to be able to face its challenges that is number one”, he said.