‘I wonder how Nigeria survives’ – EFCC chair laments huge stolen money

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, said on Tuesday, that whenever he checks case files and sees the amount stolen, he wonders how the country still exists.

In a statement by EFCC Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, the chairman stated this while receiving the management team of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, led by its chairman, Mohammed Shehu.

“When I look at some case files and see the humongous amount of money stolen, I wonder how we are still surviving. If you see some case files, you will weep. The way they move unspent budget allocation to private accounts in commercial banks before midnight at the end of a budget circle, you will wonder what kind of spirit drives us as Nigerians,” Olukoyede said.

He also said public corruption ranks as the biggest cause of corruption in Nigeria, adding that if public corruption was taken out of the polity, the country would fare better than many countries of the world.

“A situation where somebody would hold a public office or position of trust for years and you call him to account and he says, no, he would not account, is not acceptable,” he said.

He stressed that transparency and accountability should be embedded in both the public and private sectors for optimal development of the country.

According to him, corruption poses a huge challenge to the country, even as he expressed optimism that the prevention mechanisms of his leadership would ensure that the commission stays ahead of the devices of the corrupt to ensure that Nigerians have good governance experiences.

“The preventive framework for tackling corruption offers more prospects for results and impact. To this end, the EFCC now has a Department of Fraud Risk and Assessment and Control.

“Let’s look at our system of revenue generation. It is a system that allows leakages in mobilisation and appropriation of funds. If we don’t look at the system, we will continue to chase shadows. In this direction, we are not just going to investigate and recover; what we have decided to do in the EFCC is policy review. If we can block some of these leakages and have 50 per cent of capital project execution in Nigeria, the country would be fine,” he said.

The RMAFC chairman lauded the longstanding collaboration between his organisation and EFCC and stated that the visit was motivated by the need to explore more areas of collaboration between the two agencies of government, especially in the direction of recovering unremitted or lost government revenues.

“It is important to bring to the fore that the collaboration between RMAFC and EFCC is crucial in addressing the challenges of unremitted revenue to the Federation Account. On this note, we are calling on EFCC for more collaboration, not only in the area of enforcement but also intelligence gathering and data sharing as regards government revenue from any source,” he stated.

Shehu also called on EFCC to further assist RMAFC in the area of capacity building for its staff on revenue monitoring.