PUNCH
As the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission gets a substantive Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, STEPHEN ANGBULU examines his trajectory as Secretary and Chief of Staff, his suspension under Ibrahim Magu, and the early battles surrounding his chairmanship
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission got another helmsman on Thursday. A statement signed by President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, read that he “approved the appointment of Mr Olukoyede to serve as the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for a renewable term of four years in the first instance, pending Senate confirmation.”
Ngelale, as though pre-emptive of the fireworks that would follow, prefixed the announcement with “By the powers vested in President Bola Tinubu as established in section 2 (3) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, 2004, that ‘the Chairman and members of the Commission, other than ex-officio members, shall be appointed by the President…”
Shortly afterward, traditional and social media went agog with narratives for and against Olukoyede’s appointment. The reasons are not farfetched.
Though a younger brother to the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (formed in the year 2000), the EFCC, which began operations in April 2003, is now the face of the anti-graft war in Africa’s largest economy.
The reasons behind its formation enforced this position. The administration of then-President Olusegun Obasanjo established the commission in response to finger-pointing from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering—known by its French name, Grouped’actionfinancière.
GAFI, an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 nations—comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America—ranked Nigeria as one of 23 non-cooperative countries stymieing in the combined efforts to fight money laundering globally.
