The Chairman of Economic Financial Crime Commission, Ola Olukoyede has expressed frustration with the persistent issue of chasing stolen funds, only to see offenders easily bailed out in court. He highlighted a case where he recovered over N200 billion, yet the person involved was not convicted, underscoring the inefficiency and lack of deterrence in the system.
He stated that after realizing that traditional punitive measures were ineffective, he and his management team chose to concentrate on preventive measures. He revealed how they aimed to address the root causes by scrutinizing the processes within over 700 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs). He noted that the strategy involves a thorough review of the MDAs’ processes and the actual execution of their projects over the past five years.
He said in a live coverage by Channels TV, ”If you look at the researches we did, we discovered that there is no year that 20% of the money released are being used for the Nigerian people. Money are being made but it doesn’t get to the populace. And I said look, we can’t continue like this. We keep chasing stolen funds everywhere and when it’s time to prosecute, they get bailed out in Court. You are telling me that somebody did not steal money when I recovered over N200Bn from him.
And I said okay, don’t convict anymore and let me just keep recovering the money. When I saw the situation, I called my management and we agreed that we were going to the area of prevention. Because we have discovered the ingenuity that actually some of these things don’t really deter people particularly Nigerians. We decided to go into the MDAs, we have over 700 of them and we are going to go into their process for award of contract and procurement activities. We want to see the evidence of the execution of the project they have carried out for the past five years.”
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