By Barth Ikiebe

Nigeria’s anti graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has restated its commitment to enforcing professionalism and integrity in the nation’s fight against economic and financial crimes and other acts of corruption.

The commitment was re-echoed in Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State on Saturday, by top brass of the Commission led by its Executive Chairman, Mr. Ola Olukoyede at the end of a three-day Retreat for Directors of the EFCC.

Speaking on the theme of the Retreat, “EFCC: the Journey So Far, Ensuring Professionalism and Integrity”, Olukoyede pointed out that ”professionalism and integrity are key to the future relevance and effectiveness of the EFCC.
“Integrity is a fragile commodity that we must carefully nurture, protect and safeguard to guarantee the trust and respect of our various publics”. He promised that the EFCC’s workforce would turn out to be a critical mass of honest, highly motivated and effective team.

The Retreat provided an opportunity for critical and no-holds-barred review of activities of the EFCC in 2024.
Most striking in the previous year was milestones recorded in asset recovery, arrests, prosecution, strategic redirection, and organizational re-engineering, leading to the establishment of new departments and restructuring of others.

In 2024, the Commission secured 4111 convictions and hauled monetary recovery of over N365.4billion.

The EFCC’s boss appreciated the sacrifice, hard work, discipline, and commitment of staff of the Commission in making such achievements and called for increased dedication to surpass the records of 2024 and greater commitment to the integrity of processes in the agency.

Key Resource Persons made presentations at the Retreat. One of them, Professor Tonnie Iredia spoke on “The Role of Personnel in Information Management and Public Perception of the EFCC”, stressing that wrong perception of the works of the EFCC was coming out of deliberate distortion and outright cynicism about the strides and courageous works of the Commission.
He applauded the “passion, integrity, and transparent leadership Olukoyede is offering the Commission” and called for more involvement of Nigerians in the anti-graft fight.

Another speaker, Mr Femi Falana, SAN, went down memory lane about the evolution of the Commission and affirmed that” the Commission has come to stay”.

He commended Olukoyede and the entire staff of the Commission for being undaunted, resolute and progressive in moving the anti-graft war forward, promising that challenges being posed by the judiciary would be looked into to ensure that the Commission fully delivers on its mandate of tackling corrupt practices across the country.

Other highlights of the Retreat included driving digital transformation and innovation of processes and systems in the Commission through procurement of cutting-edge technology to aid the works of the EFCC, enhanced staff welfare, improving the brand equity of the Commission and doing the right thing always for the nation and the entire world.

According to Olukoyede, “in another six months, we will deliver a brand new EFCC in Nigeria.”

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