Mr. Ola Olukoyede has set fresh agenda for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, following his confirmation by the Senate.
Olukoyede was confirmed alongside Mr. Muhammad Hammajoda, Secretary of the commission.
Their confirmation came after being screened and allowed to address the upper legislative chamber at plenary.
Identifies 3 focal areas
Olukoyede identified three focal areas and raised three posers as important thrusts of plying his new job.
The three focal areas are: focus on the mandate of the EFCC, pursuit of transparency and accountability and building the image of Nigeria.
EFCC Secretary, Muhammad Hammajoda
To achieve these, he harped on the need for collective responsibility, greater emphasis on preventive frameworks against graft and premium attention on transactional credits.
“We need to reset our focus. Section 6 of the EFCC Act has given us what an anti-corruption agency should be doing.
READ ALSO: Obaseki blames Nigeria’s problems on poor leadership decisions
“Number one, I believe we should be focused on driving economic development.
“Number two, we must also create an atmosphere of transparency and accountability, number three, we must help as an anti-corruption agency to build the image of Nigeria.”
Continuing, he said: “I also came here with three posers that I like to share with us.
‘Number one is the need for collective responsibility.
Corruption is a cankerworm to our development
“We need to get to a point in Nigeria where we need to come together on the same page and believe that corruption is a cankerworm to our development.
‘We must come together and believe that, with the way financial crimes have overwhelmed our structures and systems in Nigeria, we can’t move forward and if we move forward, it will be at a snail speed.
“The time has come for us to show commitment.”
Olukoyede added: “The time has come for us to begin to look at more of prevention than enforcement.
“Enforcement is a very strong tool in our hands, we are going to apply it very seriously”.
He also pointed out that the anti-corruption war would bite harder with a transactional credit system.
READ ALSO:EFCC arrests 17 in Benin-City over alleged internet fraud
We must disallow use of cash to buy houses, cars
He argued, “If we allow Nigerians to continue to buy houses and cars with cash, a thousand EFCC, added to a million ICPC will not do us any good”.
The called for greater improvement in the criminal justice system.
He stressed, “Of we really want to fight corruption.
‘We must encourage our criminal justice system to adjudicate in such a way that, maximum prosecution doesn’t take more than five years.
Our criminal justice system must work
“If we make our criminal justice system works, you will see more of what the anti-corruption agencies are doing and it will be better for all of us”.
The Senate, impressed by the articulation of Olukoyede’s initiatives in driving the anti-corruption war more vibrantly, confirmed his appointment as a substantive Chairman of the EFCC.
It also confirmed Hammajoda as the Commission’s Secretary.
