UK lawmaker lauds EFCC, says Africa underestimates its strength

He emphasized the importance of political will in the fight against corruption and praised the President’s support for the EFCC’s efforts.

Olukoyede said, “On behalf of the entire management of EFCC, we are glad to have you in our midst. I want to thank you for identifying with what we do. You have an interest in Africa and I want to tell you that Africa has great potential. The major problem is bad governance. We need good governance to channel our human and natural resources rightly and bring Africa on top of the world.

“That is what people like us are advocating using the instrumentality of law enforcement and anti-corruption fight. Corruption is something we have to deal with. Every challenge we face in our daily life, insecurity, bad governance, lack of infrastructural development are all linked to corruption.

“Upon my assumption of office, I said I will use the instrumentality of the anti-corruption fight to stimulate growth in the economy because while enforcing laws against financial crimes, we also enforce against economic crimes. Anything can vitiate economic and infrastructural development, we are empowered by law to investigate it and bring the offenders to book. In this part of the world, you have to be courageous in order to realize your mandate. One thing that is going for us is the political will of the president. The government in power is supporting us and not interfering in what we do.

“We have tried to bring some innovations in the way we do things. Traditionally, the EFCC has been concentrating more on investigation and prosecution, and I discovered that the more we do that, the tougher the problem becomes. We are now trying to shift our focus, not necessarily away from enforcement, but we are looking more on the paths of prevention. We are looking more at the cause of the problems.

“Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with Nigerians. Nigerians are good people. Given they find themselves outside the country and given the right ecosystem, you see Nigerians perform excellently well. We are looking into our systems; we are looking into our structures; we are looking into what actually allows corruption to fester in addition to making people account for their bad deeds while in office. So, we concentrate more on prevention now.

“What we deal with is white collar crime, which is non-violent. So we want people to own the fight. When you see something, you say something.”

UK lawmaker lauds EFCC, says Africa underestimates its strength