{"id":122611,"date":"2025-09-29T09:23:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T08:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=122611"},"modified":"2025-09-29T09:23:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T08:23:41","slug":"olumhenses-hot-air-against-efcc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/olumhenses-hot-air-against-efcc\/","title":{"rendered":"Olumhense\u2019s Hot Air against EFCC"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tony Egbulefu<\/p>\n

\n

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\u2019s scope of knowledge and expertise. His continuous display of lack of understanding of EFCC\u2019s anti-corruption fight is worrisome.<\/p>\n

In a recent opinion piece, Olumhense\u00a0made a public spectacle of his scant knowledge\u00a0of\u00a0the nuances of the fight against corruption and financial crimes.<\/p>\n

His submission that internet fraudsters pose less risk to our society\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The EFCC Annual Report has been turned into a weapon to harangue\u00a0 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\u00a0 the 30th<\/sup>\u00a0of September. \u00a0Claims to the contrary by the Commission, that it has been compliant, were dismissed by the famous columnist.<\/p>\n

Yet all that was required of Olumhense to verify EFCC\u2019s compliance with statutory reporting responsibility was to put a call across to the Commission or cross-check with the National Assembly, NASS.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0of the EFCC been submitted to the National Assembly, the highlights indicate that the Commission recorded much progress.<\/p>\n

A glimpse of the 2024 EFCC Annual Report shows that the total financial recoveries stood at\u00a0N364.579,370,151.35 and\u00a0$326.496,959.95.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

These strides are compelling. Indeed, Olukoyede\u2019s record-setting recoveries and convictions in both 2023 and 2024, which are public knowledge,\u00a0left no doubt that the Commission\u00a0under his leadership\u00a0is cruising at a high altitude.<\/p>\n

The fact that Nigerians\u00a0and the international community are happy\u00a0seeing\u00a0the outcomes\u00a0of EFCC\u2019s fight against corruption, economic and financial crimes, gives Olukoyede and the Commission enough joy and encouragement on the job.<\/p>\n

The EFCC does not prioritize any financial misconduct over the others, unless in the imagination of the dense. Cybercrime or\u00a0Yahoo Yahoo<\/em>\u00a0takes root on advance fee fraud. \u00a0In 2022 alone, the country\u00a0lost $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\u00a0compromised and the youth\u00a0population\u00a0degenerating\u00a0inexorably to a tribe of rogues.<\/p>\n

All Nigerians, not just Olumhense\u00a0need to learn that cybercrime\u00a0imperils the country\u2019s\u00a0economic health\u00a0and\u00a0its\u00a0most significant asset- its reputation.\u00a0Yahoo Yahoo<\/em>\u00a0has inflicted severe and enduring reputational damage on the country with far-reaching consequences on its people.<\/p>\n

Projections by multiple sources\u00a0show that the global loss to cybercrimes may hit $10.5 trillion by\u00a0the end of 2025, with approximately 2,328\u00a0(Two Thousand, Three Hundred and Twenty-eight)\u00a0cases occurring daily.\u00a0 A crime such as this portends grave dangers to the entire world.<\/p>\n

The EFCC will not relent in fighting this crime\u00a0 as a measure to improving the integrity\u00a0 of Nigeria\u2019s cyberspace and redirection of the youth onto the path of hard work and ethical behaviours.\u00a0This\u00a0is a creed. It is hypocritical of Olumhense to reprobate Nigerian youths\u2019 involvement in internet fraud and thumb up their reasons for embracing the crime in the same breadth.<\/p>\n

Stimulating the economy through the anti-corruption fight lies at the heart of the\u00a0Olukoyede leadership,\u00a0not the number of\u00a0Yahoo Yahoo<\/em>\u00a0boys that\u00a0would\u00a0wind up in jail.\u00a0His\u00a0policy objectives and institutional actions clearly capture a desire to take the minds of Nigerian youths away from cybercrimes, not to see them\u00a0become\u00a0felons for the scaling up\u00a0of\u00a0the Commission’s\u00a0annual\u00a0conviction tally.<\/p>\n

Only ignorance\u00a0would\u00a0push\u00a0a\u00a0bystander\u00a0to\u00a0think that enforcement on matters involving politically exposed persons\u00a0would\u00a0suffer neglect because a different department\u00a0or unit of the Commission\u00a0has its hand full\u00a0battling with cyber criminals.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The EFCC is witnessing a renaissance under Olukoyede. Old records are tumbling, while new ones are being set.\u00a0 Olumhense will do his readers immense good with greater objectivity in commentaries, except the objective is to befuddle the anti-graft efforts.<\/p>\n