The new chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has said that about ₦2.9 trillion meant for some government projects was diverted into personal use by contractors between 2018 and 2020.
Mr Olukoyede disclosed this on Wednesday when he appeared before the Senate.
“I did a survey between 2018 and 2020 on 50 entities in Nigeria, both human and corporate entities. I picked just one scheme, one specie of fraud, which is called contract and procurement fraud. I discovered that within the three years, Nigeria lost N2.9trn,” the EFCC chairman said.
Mr Olukoyede said the stolen funds during the period under review would have been used for useful government projects, if the former authorities of the anti-corruption agency had prevented it from being diverted.
“When I put my figures together, I discovered that. If the country had prevented the money from being stolen, it would have given us 1,000 kilometers of road, it would have built close to 200 standard tertiary institutions. It would have also educated about 6,000 children from primary to tertiary levels at N16 million per child.
“It would have also delivered more 20,000 units of three bedroom houses across the country. It would have given us a world-class teaching hospitals in each of the 36 states of the country and the Federal Capital Territory.
“This is where we are coming from, this is where we are. Where we are going, it depends on the decision the Senate would take this afternoon.”
Olukayode unfolds 3 point agenda
New Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede has unfolded his agenda for the commission after he was screened and confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday.
Olukoyede was confirmed along with Mr. Muhammad Hammajoda, as Secretary of the Commission.
Their confirmation came after being screened and allowed to address the upper legislative chamber at plenary.
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.
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. 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,” he said.
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. 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 also said that: “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 will bite harder with a transactional credit system, arguing that, “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 new EFCC’s boss also called for greater improvement in the criminal justice system, stressing that, “if 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. 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”.
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