Olumhense’s hot air against EFCC

BY TONY EGBULEFU

Mr. Sonala Olumhense has seen better days to be taught that going off the rails is often a blunder that derives from volunteering opinions outside one’s scope of knowledge and expertise. His continuous display of lack of understanding of EFCC’s anti-corruption fight is worrisome.

In a recent opinion piece, Olumhense made a public spectacle of his scant knowledge of the nuances of the fight against corruption and financial crimes.

His submission that internet fraudsters pose less risk to our society’s well-being than corrupt politically exposed persons, beggars belief. It exposed his tenuous knowledge of even the most basic of financial crimes, not to talk of the administrative affairs of the EFCC.

It is not impossible that the veteran journalist relishes the standoffish disposition of a sworn critic of the EFCC. Unfortunately, it is hardly a path of honour, not when the interventions are laced with misinformation, if not outright disinformation. I wish Olumhense would be less intemperate and invest a little time to understand how the EFCC works. I am sure his perspectives would be less acerbic.

The EFCC Annual Report has been turned into a weapon to harangue  the agency. The regular charge is that the Commission was in default in terms of compliance with the requirement of its enabling law, to submit the report on or before  the 30^th of September.  Claims to the contrary by the Commission, that it has been compliant, were dismissed by the famous columnist.

Yet all that was required of Olumhense to verify EFCC’s compliance with statutory reporting responsibility was to put a call across to the Commission or cross-check with the National Assembly, NASS.

With September 30 just a few days away, I am certain that Olumhense has his gun loaded, ready to pull the trigger in shooting down all the good works of Ola Olukoyede and his officers, with the charge that it has again, failed to submit its report to the National Assembly. Before Olumhense misleads the public, I am compelled to do him the favour of informing him that, not only has the 2024 Annual Report of the EFCC been submitted to the National Assembly, the highlights indicate that the Commission recorded much progress.

A glimpse of the 2024 EFCC Annual Report shows that the total financial recoveries stood at N364.579,370,151.35 and $326.496,959.95.  Petitions received within the year were 15, 724 (Fifteen thousand, seven hundred and twenty-four), with 12, 928 investigated. Of the number investigated, the Commission charged 5, 081 to court and secured 4,111convictions. The prosecutions and convictions represented a 47.70 percent and 53.74 percent increase, respectively from the 2023 figures.

From the report, the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering, SCUML of the Commission, mandated to monitor compliance of Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions, DNFBPs with the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations conducted 2,348 onsite evaluations of DNFBPs in 2024, representing 85 percent increase, compared to 1,263, examinations carried out in 2023.

Also remarkable in the 2024 Annual Report is the impact of the Department of Fraud Risk Assessment and Control, FRAC, created by Ola Olukoyede in his first year to give fillip to the Commission’s fraud prevention mandate with special focus on Ministries, Departments and Agencies at national and sub-national levels. The department significantly monitored financial disbursements for flagship federal government initiatives, including Pi-CNG, NG-CARES, NACA Global Fund Grants, RESET and ARMOR LOANS, and CBN COVID-19 Support Schemes. Its evaluation of the PI-CNG Project Contract valued at N88, 500,000.00 (Eighty-eight billion, Five Hundred Million Naira), ensured 95 percent delivery of the buses and conversion kits.

These strides are compelling. Indeed, Olukoyede’s record-setting recoveries and convictions in both 2023 and 2024, which are public knowledge, left no doubt that the Commission under his leadership is cruising at a high altitude.

The fact that Nigerians and the international community are happy seeing the outcomes of EFCC’s fight against corruption, economic and financial crimes, gives Olukoyede and the Commission enough joy and encouragement on the job.

The EFCC does not prioritize any financial misconduct over the others, unless in the imagination of the dense. Cybercrime or Yahoo Yahoo takes root on advance fee fraud.  In 2022 alone, the country lost $500million to the crime. No responsible organisation, charged with fighting financial crimes would sit idly and watch the integrity of the country’s institutions, being willfully compromised and the youth population degenerating inexorably to a tribe of rogues.

All Nigerians, not just Olumhense need to learn that cybercrime imperils the country’s economic health and its most significant asset- its reputation. Yahoo Yahoo has inflicted severe and enduring reputational damage on the country with far-reaching consequences on its people.

Projections by multiple sources show that the global loss to cybercrimes may hit $10.5 trillion by the end of 2025, with approximately 2,328 (Two Thousand, Three Hundred and Twenty-eight) cases occurring daily.  A crime such as this portends grave dangers to the entire world.

The EFCC will not relent in fighting this crime  as a measure to improving the integrity  of Nigeria’s cyberspace and redirection of the youth onto the path of hard work and ethical behaviours. This is a creed. It is hypocritical of Olumhense to reprobate Nigerian youths’ involvement in internet fraud and thumb up their reasons for embracing the crime in the same breadth.

Stimulating the economy through the anti-corruption fight lies at the heart of the Olukoyede leadership, not the number of Yahoo Yahoo boys that would wind up in jail. His policy objectives and institutional actions clearly capture a desire to take the minds of Nigerian youths away from cybercrimes, not to see them become felons for the scaling up of the Commission’s annual conviction tally.

Only ignorance would push a bystander to think that enforcement on matters involving politically exposed persons would suffer neglect because a different department or unit of the Commission has its hand full battling with cyber criminals.

The EFCC is witnessing a renaissance under Olukoyede. Old records are tumbling, while new ones are being set.  Olumhense will do his readers immense good with greater objectivity in commentaries, except the objective is to befuddle the anti-graft efforts.

Egbulefu is of the media and publicity unit of the EFCC.