*Fidelis Oditah’s commercialized outbursts against EFCC, corruption fighting back*

*By Kehinde Osifisan

The recent virulent outbursts on a national television Programme by a UK-based Nigeria lawyer, Professor
Fidelis Oditah, calls for serious concern as it was nothing short of corruption fighting back.

One is taken aback that Professor Oditah, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), though far from home, could go on a national television’s live programme to display or feign such lack of knowledge about the EFCC’s Establishment Act, operations and recent sterling accomplishments of the Commission, especially under the current, widely acclaimed, leadership of Ola Olukoyede as Chairman.

The unrestrained attacks on the EFCC by the professor and his startling comments trivialising the issue of corruption and the unrelenting efforts and commendable achievements of the Commission in the last one year, leaves much to be desired.
One cannot accept that the professor, though foreign based, is unaware of the developments and achievements of the EFCC in the last one year, even in this age of the internet.

Rather, one suspects that corruption is fighting back. Having failed to rubbish the EFCC and its Chairman, through simulated attacks by its local recruits, Nigeria’s politically exposed persons undergoing corruption trials, might have chosen to ‘boost’ its well oiled propaganda machine by recruiting foreign based “opinion experts”.

Ironically, the Director of Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, Christopher Wray, from the United Kingdom, where Oditah has long been ensconced, paid historic visit to the EFCC headquarters, commending the Commission on the feat attained in the fight against corruption and financial crimes and seeking more collaboration with the EFCC in their shared mandate of fighting corruption and financial crimes across the borders. The visit was the first of its kind Olin the annals of the EFCC.

Wray expressed confidence and appreciation to the Commission for its professional handling of transnational economic and financial crimes, especially cybercrimes and sextortion; and pledged stronger cooperation with the Commission.

The renewed attraction of foreign law enforcement/anticorruption agencies to the EFCC under Olukoyede has been unprecedented and strongly anchors on the new face of the fight against economic and financial crimes. The new professional approach of the Commission resonates well with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), leading to positives outcomes and result-oriented synergies.

Also, on September 6, 2024, the EFCC boss handed over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) the sum of $180,300 (about N310,000,000 – million here hundred and ten million naira) and 53 vehicles worth hundreds of millions of naira; being assets recovered for Canadian victims of Nigerian fraudsters.
Representing the Canadian authorities and the RCMP at the handover ceremony were Robert Aboumitri, First Secretary, Deputy High Commission of Canada and Nasser Salihou, Liaison Officer and Programme Manager, RCM.

The EFCC has also been making exploits with the Spanish Police. On September 20, 2024, Olukoyede handed over €5,100 (Five Thousand, One Hundred Euros – N9.5M, Nine million, five hundred thousand naira) proceeds of crime to the Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Juan Ignacio Sell, being the sum recovered from a Nigerian romance fraudster for Heinz Burchard Einhaus Uchtmann, a Spanish victim, by the EFCC in collaboration with the Spanish Police.

It can therefore be discerningly deduced that Oditah’s vituperations were not only out of touch with realities on ground concerning the EFCC, but also, most probably, stemmed from the spurs of the political clique that is seriously unhappy with EFCC, as it continues to touch and puts on trial, the hitherto “untouchables” and “sacred cows”.

As the EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, puts it: “There is no denying the fact that the respected professor goofed in all his comments about the EFCC and his views are not reflective of the realities on ground concerning the anti- corruption fight of the government.”

However, it is good and reassuring to note that Ola Olukoyede remains unperturbed, undeterred and undaunted in his commitment to delivering the constitutional mandate of the EFCC. As he declared in a charge to the EFCC operatives after mandating all of them to declare their assets for verification: “Don’t be tired. They will call us names. They will abuse us. But we will remain on our feet and pursue the mandate that was given to us by the (EFCC) Act. We will fight this war. I assure you that there will be be light at the end of the tunnel. We will win at last. Nigeria will win.”

Osifisan, a Social Policy Advocate, is the Programme Coordinator at the Abuja-based Journalists Against Corruption (JAC) and sent this via [email protected]

Brace Foundation Gives Attention to Children with Special Needs

The Brace Foundation on Friday in Lagos organised a workshop to deepen the knowledge of those caring for children with special needs in one way or the other. The workshop was aimed at improving the lives of children with special needs.

At the event held at Lekki, the Chairman of Brace Foundation, Dr Gabriel Ogbechie, said that the workshop had become necessary to increase the level of awareness as regards care for children with special needs.
The workshop had in attendance no fewer than 1,200 participants drawn from public and private sectors attended the workshop. They include parents, guardians, educators, caregivers, health workers, therapists, legal experts, clergymen and members of the Red Cross Society.

Ogbechie said there was need to educate the society more about the peculiarities of people with special needs.
“They are still human beings who the society needs to accept for who they are.” “Growing up, I saw children with special needs. We didn’t understand what special needs were, and they were maltreated by the society. Education has made us to understand that what the children actually had were special needs and nothing else,” he said.

He regretted that children with special needs struggled with learning and many other things.“We have seen children with special needs struggle in school and the larger society, and we felt that it is a space we can bring in resources through this workshop. This will help these children to live a better life, integrate better into the society and live a fulfilled life,” he added.

The workshop discussed speech therapy, art of communication, special needs, and navigating behavioural challenge, among others issues.

Earlier, the Executive Director of Brace Foundation, Dr Soibi Hephzibah, said that the foundation focused on education of children with special needs. She noted that it involved behavioural and occupational education.
In her remarks, the Vice Chairperson of the foundation, Mrs Godrey Ogbechie, said that all children had needs but some required special needs due to one challenge or the other.

“We want to make it easier for them to have supportive mechanisms that will help them to strive. Even the ones we term normal have needs but they are just different,” she said.

The Head of Lagos Preparatory School, Ikoyi, Lagos, Mrs Dipa Horsfall, who was a participant at the workshop, advised parents of children with special needs to give them more attention.

Horsfall urged the federal and state governments to do more to improve healthcare services for children with special needs to discourage taking them abroad for healthcare

Professor Fidelis Oditah is Wrong about the EFCC

By Dele Oyewale

Professor Fidelis Oditah’s recent interactive discussion on a wide range of issues on Arise News, are quite engaging. As a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN and an international legal mind, his views on national issues cannot be disregarded. Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once said, “with words we govern men”. Thus, Oditah’ s words are important and cannot be dismissed as empty effusion lacking weight or impact.

However, the learned Professor’s submission on what he called the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC’s three fundamental problems are, to say the least, prejudicial, unfounded and misleading. First, Oditah stated that “The EFCC is often being used for settling many scores. Some are political scores, some are social scores. So, you could run away from your girlfriend and the girlfriend goes to the EFCC and the EFCC could ask you questions(sic). What has that got to do with economic crimes? That is blatant abuse of power”(sic).

How on earth will this kind of a scenario painted by the learned silk hold water? The simplest argument against this kind of effusion is to challenge Oditah to provide proofs of such banality. We all know that this just an idle talk because the EFCC is a serious- minded law enforcement agency. The only worrisome aspect of such a talk is that it betrays an embarrassing lack of grasp of what the EFCC’s focus is.

This issue of appropriate and proper focusing of the mandate of the EFCC has been a central pivot of the three- pronged agenda of the Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede. In the full glare of the entire world, while addressing members of the National Assembly in October 2023, Olukoyede stated that the focus of every fight against corruption was to stimulate growth in the economy. For more than a year now, the EFCC’s boss has been consistently following this route. The review of the arrest and bail procedures of the EFCC is in line with this. Professor Oditah is probably busy with his works as a King’s Counsel in the United Kingdom and have no time to be abreast of development in the EFCC. Olukoyede is a lawyer of high pedigree and would not allow what the learned counsel called “ blatant abuse of power”.

The second “ fundamental problem of the EFCC”, according to Oditah is that “The EFCC has abandoned its mandate and reduce itself to a debt- collection agency, notwithstanding the numerous court decisions saying the EFCC must stay within the narrow confines of financial and economic crimes. The EFCC has gone out for debt recovery”. This submission, again, is hollow and vacuous. The EFCC’s Establishment Act does not empower the Commission to collect debt on behalf of anyone. The recovery the EFCC does is taking back proceeds of crime from fraudsters. Asset recovery, all over the world, is a fundamental law enforcement and anti- corruption initiative. As a matter of fact, it is the ground norm of every anti- corruption fight. To this end, Olukoyede in just one year, recovered  N248,750,049,365.52 (Two Hundred and Forty-Eight Billion, Seven Hundred and Fifty Million, Forty-Nine Thousand, Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Naira, Fifty-Two Kobo).

In foreign currencies,  recoveries of the Commission in the one year of Olukoyede’s leadership are: $105,423,190.39 (One Hundred and Five Million, Four Hundred and Twenty-Three Thousand, One Hundred and Ninety Dollars, Thirty-Nine Cents); £ 53,133.64 (Fifty-Three Thousand, One Hundred and Thirty-Three Pounds, Sixty-Four Pence; €172,547.10 (One Hundred and Seventy-Two Thousand, Five Hundred and Forty-Seven Euros, Ten Cents) and many others.

Going by the quantum of these recoveries, not to talk of real estate recovered all over the country, including shares acquired with proceeds of crime in blue- chip companies, it is simply preposterous to reduce and ridicule asset recoveries to debt recovery. Professor Oditah owes the EFCC and the entire nation unconditional apology in this regard. Just two days ago, a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos granted final forfeitures of over $2million and seven princely properties in choice areas of Lagos to the Federal Government. The assets are proceeds of crime traced to a former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. Do such recoveries fall into the category of debt recovery insinuation of Oditah? President Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently directed that N100billion be channeled to the funding of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND and the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation, CreditCorp, respectively from the monetary recoveries of the EFCC. Is the Professor aware of all these? It is evident that bringing down the issue of asset recovery to the ridiculous corridor of debt recovery is deliberate caricature of an important anti- corruption framework of the government. This is an initiative which local, regional and international agencies are commending Olukoyede and the EFCC about. It is to be noted also that the Director of FBI and the DG of National Crime Agency in the UK where he resides have paid cortesty visits to Olukoyede commending him on the feat he has attained in the fight against corruption and financial crimes and to seek more collaboration with the agency in their shared mandate of fighting corruption and financial crimes

The third issue Odikah raised against the EFCC, like the earlier issues, again, lacks any firm ground of substance. Hear him:
“The EFCC itself, a number of officers are more corrupt than those they are chasing. So, you remember what happened to Mr Bawa, Mr Matawalle, when Mr Matawalle finished his tenure as governor of Zamfara state and he said he was invited by Mr Bawa to bring $2million so as not to be investigated. The EFCC itself has become a corrupt organisation which needs to be completely disbanded and a new body set up . The EFCC has the resources. It does not have the ethics. The EFCC majors on minor issues, catching students and showing them as cyber criminals and so it says, it procured 1000 convictions and when you look at them they are people who have defrauded people of 20 or 22 dollars. That’s not the mandate. That’s the periphery. The central mandate is to ensure that the resources which are put in the hands of states are used by the states and that’s where the EFCC”

Going through all these trumped- up claims, it is obvious that Oditah has elected to totally launch unwarranted verbal war against the Commission and its officers. How many officers of the EFCC have been tainted with corruption allegations? Is it acceptable to use the “ sins” of very few elements in a community to paint and taint it as a community of sinners? It should be noted that there is no law enforcement agency in the world that is not vulnerable to corrupt officers. What is important is what the agency is doing to such elements. Olukoyede is known for his no- nonsense approach to ethical issues in the Commission. As a matter of fact, upon assumption of duties, he directed every officer of the Commission to declare their assets and ensure that verification of assets so declared is established. He went ahead to name the Department of Internal Affairs as Department of Ethics and Integrity. Beyond all these, some erring officers of the Commission have either been shown the way out or facing trial. In recent times, the Commission has had cause to dismiss some officers on allegations of corruption and gross misconduct. The EFCC is self- cleansing and the Commission deserves commendation for this.

It is worrisome that a Professor of the reputation and exposure of Oditah could dismiss the Commission’s onslaught against internet fraudsters as an unserious engagement. The damages this genre of fraudsters are causing the nation is untold. A crime that has a projection of $10.6trillion loss to the whole world in 2025 and Nigeria lost more than $500million in 2022 alone, is what Oditah derisively lampooned the EFCC about. We have cause to be worried that those who ought to know better are either playing the Ostrich or advertising their ignorance of a major malaise confronting the nation. Owing to the threat of cybercrimes to the development of our country, the EFCC has held two national dialogues on it. The recent one held few days ago at the Presidential Villa. The Professor should know that the EFCC mandate is to investigate all financial and economic crimes and no financial crime is small or big to be investigated in order to save the soul of the nation. It should be recalled that in recent times, the EFCC had had cause to prosecute and file charges against four ex- governors and some former ministers who were found culpable by EFCC’s investigation for looting state treasuries. This is just to confirm that the Commission is not scared of taking up large- scale fraud’s investigations and prosecution which we shall continue to do

There is no denying the fact that the respected professor goofed in all his comments about the EFCC and his views are not reflective of the realities on ground concerning the anti- corruption fight of the government.

On a final note, we enjoin professor Oditah to get himself familiar with the works of the Commission and lend his expertise and rich experience to the nation for a more robust and fully- integrated war against corruption. We also want to advise the fourth estate of the realm not to allow their platforms to be used to cast unfounded aspersions on the good works of the EFCC. The Commission is not averse to meaningful contributions and advise from well- meaning and reform- minded Nigerians to strengthen our processes and procedures as we continue this crusade,

*** Dele Oyewale is Head, Media & Publicity of the EFCC.