As reactions continue to trail the recent appointment of Olanipekun Olukoyede as the new chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, has appealed to critics of the appointment to sheathe their swords.
Okechukwu, who is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said Olukoyede’s traducers should calm down, stressing that the appointment of the former EFCC secretary is a game changer for anti-graft-war crusade, going by Olukoyode’s antecedents.
In a statement yesterday, he maintained that it was not unusual for controversy to erupt after the appointment to an important and strategic office like the chairman of EFCC, with regard to whether the appointment conforms with extant laws.
However, Okechukwu, called for caution, saying, “One has carefully taken a cursory analysis of the raging debate and came to the inevitable conclusion that Ola Olukoyode’s traducers had forgotten the famous and ageless maxim of the foremost physician of all time Albert Einstein – “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
“Corollary,” he said, “the truism is that Olukoyode’s appointment comes as a remedy, because EFCC was formed to provide alternative front for higher performance in waging the Herculean anti-graft war crusade.
“Therefore, his appointment from fraud angle of the noble legal profession is an appropriate alternative strategy for reforms. Doing otherwise is akin to doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
On the legitimacy of his qualification, the DG VON said that he is in league with the preponderant view of senior counsel that Olukoyode’s cognate experience is unassailable having headed the administrative wing of the EFCC and having devoted the last two decades in the tricky fraud profession.
“As the intendment of the law is that emphasis should be laid on cognate experience. The reforms contemplated by Renewed Agenda of President Tinubu can only be achieved under an informed insider with requisite legal tools not a learner. That, to me, is the essential thrust of Olukoyode’s appointment,” he added.
According to him, Nigerians should expect better results from Olukoyode, even as he urged the new EFCC chairman to always stand against the temptation of media trial but conclude diligent investigations before exposing criminal suspects.
He further admonished Olukoyede to ensure that EFCC operatives embark on investigations with fine tooth combs to fish out billions of dollars looted from Nigeria’s commonwealth and stashed abroad in foreign banks.
“Having served as member of the Technical Committee of the Presidential Advisory Council on Corruption, as well as member of the Technical Committee on the Repositioning of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU); Olukoyede should insist that his men uses fine tooth combs to fish out billions of dollars stashed abroad.
“These monies could help to bail Nigerians out of economic quagmire and debt burden. Common-sense dictates that it cannot be only Gen Abacha’s loot that are hidden in foreign banks.
“I, therefore appeal to Olukoyede’s traducers to sheathe their swords and assist him with ideas to make EFCC deliver on its lofty mandates,” Okechukwu demanded.