The Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr. Osita Okechukwu has called on Nigerians to give the newly appointed Chairman of the Economic and Financials Crimes Commission (EFCC), Olanipekun Olukayode a chance to do his work without distractions.
The VON boss reiterated that President Tinubu was right to appoint the new EFCC Chairman as he is adequately experienced and qualified to do the job of fighting corruption in Nigeria.
Many Nigerians have criticized the appointment of the former Secretary of the anti corruption agency on the ground that he did not meet the stipulated criteria of appointment by the Act establishing the EFCC.
However, in a personal statement issued on Sunday in Abuja, Okechukwu said that Nigerians should expect real changes in the EFCC as the new helmsman would do a better job than previous leaders of the agency.
According to him, “one has carefully taken a cursory analysis of the raging debate and came to the inevitable conclusion that Ola Olukoyede’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.”
The VON DG maintains that “the truism is that Olukoyede’s appointment is remedy as EFCC was formed to provide alternative 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 for reforms. Doing otherwise is akin to doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
“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 Olukoyede’s appointment.”
On the position that Olukayode’s appointment was flawed because he does not possess security training background, Mr. Okechukwu stated that Olukayode, “haven served as a 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); he should with fine combs fish out billions of dollars stashed abroad, and bail Nigerians out of economic quagmire and debt burden; for common sense dictates that it cannot be only Gen Abacha’s loot.”