By Isaac Aregbesola
THE CHAIRMAN of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has stressed the need to collaborate with the Media and Civil society in the Fight against Corruption.
Okukoyede said this when the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Ali Muhammed Ali, paid him a courtesy visit at the commissions, Headquarters in Abuja.
He described the media as an important ally in fighting and defeating the monster of corruption in the country.
He said that public enlightenment was one of the tools deployed in the fight against corruption, which he said could only be achieved using the media.
“We believe that concerning our mandate, we must have strong synergy with the media; the News Agency of Nigeria. It is extremely important because part of the factors we can deploy to really fight this war against corruption is public enlightenment, and the major stakeholders are the media people.
“Without you it will be extremely difficult to reach the grassroots and let the people know how endemic this problem is, and the need for us to all come together to collaborate. The job is not only for the law enforcement agency, it is for everybody,” he said.
According to him, there is nowhere in the world that anti-corruption agencies win the war against corruption without collaboration with the civil society and the media
“Because these are the people that will drum up from whatever you are doing and where there is sentiments, they are the people that will be able to balance things up,” he said.
Speaking on the effect of corruption in Nigeria and Africa in general, the EFCC boss said that corruption had a strong relationship with insecurity.
He said that security could only be achieved when the fight against corruption is won.
“As a matter of fact, if you can deal with the issue of corruption, the issue of insecurity will become an issue of the past. So, we are going to collaborate with you,” he said.
Responding, the Managing Director of NAN stated that the visit to the EFCC was to intimate the Chairman on the agency’s plan to organize an international lecture on insecurity and the fight against corruption.
“We are coming to first to intimate you on our plan to have the first international lecture organised by the agency. The agency, as part of its efforts to also contribute to the body of knowledge, has to go about having a resolution to this lingering crisis of insecurity in the country and beyond.
“We took it on a bigger scale. We are looking at insecurity in the Sahel, how it has affected Nigeria. We are dissecting the origin, the genesis, the impact and the options available to the country,” he said.
Speaking on insecurity and corruption, Ali identified a strong relationship between the two menace bedeviling the African region
He said that the EFCC, under the leadership of Olukoyede, had made significant strides in the anti-corruption fight over the years.
“We have seen the commendable job you’ve been doing in the last couple of months. We said let us go to the EFCC and intimate them and this is what is happening.
“We do not want to just have the Chairman as a mere invitee. The whole management came to intimate you about our plans,” the NAN MD said. (NAN)
