Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, has charged civil society organisations, CSOs, to be more resolute and committed to the fight against economic and financial crimes and other acts of corruption.
He gave the charge in Abuja on Monday, at an interactive meeting with key leaders of CSOs held at the commission’s headquarters, Abuja.
Olukoyede said: “You people are the eyes of the public. The public is looking up to you even more than us. That is why they run to you when they see cases and they ask you to petition cases on their behalf. That is why as civil societies, of course you know the status the law has conferred to you, that in every public interest case, you have locus standi.”
He noted that most of the petitions coming to the EFCC and other anti-corruption bodies were always channeled through CSOs.
“I look at the petitions that are coming to us, and 80 percent of them are from the civil society, so assuming we don’t have a serious civil society in Nigeria, you would imagine what would have happened to us in this country,” he added.
He stated that his leadership of the EFCC was hinged on a three-pronged agenda, which include proper focus and definition of the basis of anti-corruption fight, professionalism of the work force and strict adherence to the rule of law.
“The focus of any fight against economic and financial crimes is to stimulate growth and development in the economy. We will work in such a way that business concerns will be able to create jobs by removing threats to businesses. We will ensure that the image of our nation improves significantly because we will not allow those giving us a bad name to continue.
I tell you all over the world where they have a strong presence of anti-corruption agencies, they make an impact by what they contribute to the economic development,” he said.
In a response, Auwal Rafsanjani, Coordinator, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy, CISLAC sad that the EFCC was a natural partner to any civil society organisation and warned CSOs to desist from joining any fraudulent politician or system.
