- Urge him to learn from Ribadu, Waziri, Magu, Bawa’s ordeals
- Act according to the law to avoid ‘disgraceful exit’ – Civil societies
- Olukoyede’s appointment unconstitutional, an aberration – Rights group
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR & BENEDICT NWACHUKWU
The newly appointed Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, has been urged to stand tall and act according to relevant laws in his new assignment of fighting corruption in order to avoid being disgraced out of office like some of his predecessors.
President Bola Tinubu, on Thursday, approved the appointment of Olukoyede to serve for a renewable term of four years in the first instance, pending his confirmation by the Senate.
The presidential spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, who made this known, said Olukoyede is a lawyer with over 22 years of experience as a regulatory compliance consultant and specialist in fraud management and corporate intelligence.
According to Ngelale, “He (Olukoyede) has extensive experience in the operations of the EFCC, having previously served as Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman (2016-2018) and Secretary to the Commission (2018-2023). As such, he fulfills the statutory requirement for appointment as Chairman of the EFCC.”
Ngelale added that Olukoyede’s appointment followed the resignation of the suspended Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa.
“Furthermore, President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of Mr. Muhammad Hassan Hammajoda to serve as the Secretary of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for a renewable term of five years in the first instance, pending Senate confirmation.
“Mr. Muhammad Hassan Hammajoda is a public administrator with extensive experience in public finance management who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Maiduguri and a Masters in Business Administration from the same university. He began his career as a lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi. From there, he went into banking, including successful stints at the defunct Allied Bank and Standard Trust Bank.
“President Bola Tinubu tasks the new leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to justify the confidence given to them in this important national assignment as a newly invigorated war on corruption undertaken through a reformed institutional architecture in the anti-corruption sector remains a central pillar of the President’s Renewed Hope agenda,” Ngelale said.
Meanwhile, notable Nigerians, leaders of civil society organisations, human rights groups, security experts and public affairs analysts, in their separate interviews, set agenda for the substantive anti-graft outfit boss, urging him to learn from the ordeals of his predecessors.
Recall that Nuhu Ribadu, the first chairman of EFCC was appointed in 2006 by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, and he was sacked by the next President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in December 2007. Soon afterwards, he was dismissed from the police force for “indiscipline, insubordination and absence from duty.”
Yar’Adua replaced Ribadu with Farida Waziri. But, former President, Goodluck Jonathan sacked her amid controversial circumstances.
Jonathan had appointed Ibrahim Magu, former Acting Chairman of the agency. But, Magu was arrested in July, 2020 by security agents after he was accused of insubordination and re-looting of recovered funds.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Umar Mohammed Abba to replace Magu. Buhari later appointed Abdulrasheed Bawa as the agency’s chairman in 2021.
However, Bawa didn’t last as the operatives of the Department of State Services arrested him on June 14, 2023 hours after his suspension by President Tinubu.
The Director of Information, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Willie Bassey, in a statement announcing Bawa’s suspension, cited “weighty allegations of abuse of office levelled against him” as the reason for the President’s decision to suspend him.
Reacting to Olukoyede’s appointment, the Chairman of Coalition of Civil Societies in Osun State, Waheed Lawal, said the new EFCC boss should work for Nigeria without witch-hunting anyone and that he should not allow politicians to corrupt him.
“As a lawyer with 22 years’ experience and someone who has worked with the EFCC as the Secretary of the commission, what Nigerians expect at this time is that he should work for Nigeria.
“He should work so that we will have a corrupt-free society and there must not be any witch-hunting. He should do the work according to the dictate of the law and there should be no sacred cows. He should be able to know that he is working for Nigeria and not for politicians. He should know that he is not working for government of the day but that he is working for the entire citizens of Nigeria. I wish him success and good luck but Nigerians are watching and we want to see the results of his appointment,” he said.
A security expert, Akin Adeyi, said Olukoyede, being a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God should live above board and refrain from soiling his hands.
The former Director of the DSS, said, “It has become a tradition in the EFCC that the leadership always leaves in disgrace. So, we are still hunting for a particular one that will leave with his honour intact. The only thing I can see from this one is that the lane that has been set with the appointment of Bawa, I think President Tinubu continued on that lane with the appointment of Olukoyede. I think it is a departure from the time whereby past leaders always have their records with police officers. Bawa wasn’t a police officer and the same thing for this particular person.
“Maybe, religion will be an added advantage because from his profile, we can see that he is a Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. I know that’s not a significant reason why he can’t soil his hands like others that may have soiled their hands before and the fact that he has been in the EFCC for so long, probably will make a difference but he has to be very careful because he will have more parties to fight than the previous holders of that office.
“Why because if you study President Tinubu’s policies or the way he is working, he is a bit tinted to want to fight corruption but he is being very careful. With what he is doing with the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) now, there is no way he will not have a strong hold of the EFCC and with the clamour for revelations and exposure of those that have been involved in fuel subsidy before this time, he shouldn’t be left just like that.
“I want to believe that after this ongoing scrutiny at the CBN, that would be the next and it will keep the new appointee very busy. He should draw his own lessons from what has happened to people that held that office before him. I want to wish him a successful tenure and that Nigerians are expecting good performances from him.”
For the Executive Chairman of Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice, Alimi Adeniyi, Olukoyede should follow the rule of law and due procedure and he should allow the EFCC Act to be his guiding principles.
“He should read the Act very well, digest it including the 1999 Constitution and follow them. He will have to purify his mind because there is no way you can enter that post which is loaded with a series of atrocities and vile without the temptations of soiling your hands. So, that’s why he has to purify his mind. You know that Nigerians easily resort to bribes whenever their corrupt deals are to be exposed and a lot of EFCC Chairmen have been falling for this. This is why you see that most of them are being accused of embezzlement of loot that they recovered from suspects and other corrupt practices when leaving office. We have the cases of Farida Waziri, Ibrahim Magu and many others who were alleged of diverting money recovered by the agency and learning lessons from them. If he does these, I am sure he will perform. But, if he refuses and listens to godfathers, he will fail woefully. So, we advise him to be sincere and be faithful to the Nigeria agenda. If he truly wants to work, he will get it right and perform in the way Nigerians expect.”
A clergyman and human rights activist, Bishop Seun Adeoye, asked the new EFCC chairman not to spare any corrupt person no matter how highly placed and that he should be mindful of pitfalls of the previous holders of the office.
“I think the new EFCC chairman should obey the rules and regulations set down for that agency. When the rules are there and you follow them, there won’t be any chaos. He should also avoid all the pitfalls of the former bosses of the EFCC because either way, I am not sure if any EFCC boss got out of that office after the expiration of their tenures without violence. They go out with accusations of corruption, stealing, embezzlement, infighting and others.
“So, he should avoid all that and focus on his attention. Also, he should not allow politicians to use him. Although he is appointed by a politician, he should just focus on his assignment as a professional believing that his agency is supposed to save Nigeria from corruption and then he should ensure that he probes and prosecutes all those who are corrupt, not yahoo boys alone. He should visit those who are corrupt and those who are using our common wealth and using it to establish their families. He should not spare anybody; he should not spare the rod.
“Definitely, he will step on toes because if he says he won’t step on toes, then he would not do anything. So, he should be ready to step on toes to save Nigeria. If he can do all these, maybe his tenure would be written in gold and his tenure possibly being the best.
“To make it the best is in his hands and I encourage him to do that. For us, we will give him necessary support because we know that corruption is endemic in Nigeria and this has really enmeshed the crisis we are seeing now. Whatsoever, I wish to congratulate him,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson of a civil rights group, Osun Masterminds, Ayo Ologun, has described Olukoyede’s appointment as unconstitutional.
Ologun said, “As much as the news of the appointment of a substantive EFCC chairman should elate joy and hope that the fight against economic crime and sabotage will take a new turn and a fresh breathe, it is rather disappointing that the appointment is in violation of stipulated law and order for such appointment.
“The law guiding the appointment of an EFCC chair stipulated that the chairman of the commission “must be a serving or retired member of any government security or law enforcement agency not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police or equivalent; possess not less than 15 years’ experience.”
“The new appointee does not fulfill this provision of the law and hence is an aberration. The law is the law.”
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria said the appointment of Olukayode has demonstrated the ugly fact that the anti-corruption programme and initiatives of the EFCC as a statutory institution have now collapsed and have become an appendage of the All Progressives Congress’s national leader and President Tinubu as such Nigerians should not expect the best from the new chairman.
Emmanuel Onwubiko, the national coordinator, accused President Tinubu of using his office to target perceived political enemies, former government officials, and those who opposed him during the 2023 party primaries and campaigns.
He noted these actions have included the prolonged detention of individuals without trial, which is an unconstitutional violation of their rights.
He said, “One alarming case is that of the then EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa, who has been held in detention for nearly two months without due legal process.
“Lawyers and supporters of constitutional democracy have denounced his detention as illegal, unconstitutional, and politically motivated. They claimed that he was being prosecuted for investigating and exposing corruption cases involving Tinubu and his allies during his tenure as the governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007. So, how do you expect a chairman appointed under these circumstances to truly lead a fight against corruption?”
In his reactions, the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Ejimofor Opara, charged the new chairman to discharge his duty to the letter, place the country above self and other considerations.
He said, “for him to be appointed by Mr. President, that means he is eminently qualified. We hope he will bring his wealth of knowledge and experience to bear in discharging his duty. We believe we will continue to see positive changes in the Commission and the fight against all forms of crimes.
“We as a party are not anti APC-led Federal Government’s policies, we support any move they take, so long as they don’t go against the core principles of our nation and Constitution, we support them.”
Also reacting, a former member, House of Representatives and APC Chieftain, Cletus Obun, said Nigerians expect the EFCC under the new chairman to be apt to the prevention of crime not just dealing with crime.
“The management of the EFCC has been officially diluted by the official interferences which have affected the core principles and mandate of the commission. We expect that under this leadership, the EFCC will be apt to the prevention of crimes and not just to deal with crimes, I think that should be more important so that we don’t have to allow people to go and commit and we congest our courts so that we will prosecute.
“He should therefore dwell more on preventing financial crime rather than prosecuting financial crime. As for me, anything that can differentiate this EFCC from the past that became a conduit.”
Obun also said the chairman should make the presence of his personnel felt at the various elections to prevent vote buying which is an electoral crime as contained in the Electoral Act starting with the off-cycle gubernatorial elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States but argued that he should not be assessed by the elections which are less than a month.
An Abuja-based businessman, Goddy Ijomah wants the new EFCC boss to confront the financial crimes committed by politicians at all levels regardless of who they are.
“He should not allow himself to become an instrument for witch-hunting. He is now in charge of a very serious commission. He has to start by bringing these politicians and civil servants particularly those who served in the last administration to account for their stewardships. If he wants to succeed in fighting corruption, he should not be partisan. He should treat all of them in the same manner, whether they belong to APC, PDP, Labour Party, SDP or NNPP. We don’t want a plea bargain which his predecessors employed to give the criminals soft landing. That’s all I can say.”
