The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, says collaboration with the media will strengthen the fight against corruption in the country.
Olukoyede said this when the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Malam Ali Muhammad Ali, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
He described the media as an important ally in fighting and defeating the menace of corruption in the country.
According to Olukoyede, appropriate and effective public enlightenment is a significant tool used by the commission in ensuring a paradigm shift in the perception of corruption among Nigerians.
‘We believe that concerning our mandate, we must have strong synergy with the media; the News Agency of Nigeria, especially.
‘It is extremely important because part of the factors we can deploy to really fight this war 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 agencies; it is for everybody,’ he said.
According to him, there is nowhere in the world that anti-corruption agencies succeed without collaboration with the media and civil society.
‘These are the people that will drum up whatever you are doing and where there is sentiments, they are the people that will be able to balance things up,’ he said.
On the effect of corruption in Nigeria and Africa, Olukoyede said corruption had a strong relationship with insecurity, stressing that security could only be achieved when the fight against corruption is won.
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‘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’.
Responding, Ali said the visit was to intimate the EFCC on the agency’s plan to organise an internat
ional lecture on insecurity in the Sahel.
‘We are coming to first 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.
Ali said that there is a strong relationship between insecurity and corruption that has remained a challenge in the African region.
He said that the EFCC had made significant strides in the anti-corruption fight in the country 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 don’t want to just have the Chairman as a mere invitee. Th
e whole management came to intimate you about our plans,’ the NAN MD said.
Source: News Agency of Nigeria