Those Against Olukoyede’s Appointment As EFCC Chairman Are Traducers – VON DG

The Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, has condemned criticisms surrounding the appointment of Olanipekun Olukoyede as the new chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

In a statement on Sunday in Abuja, Okechukwu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said that the appointment of Okukoyede is a game-changer in the fight against corruption.

The VON boss appealed to those against Olukoyede’s appointment to sheath their swords, and allow the new ant-graft czar to settle down and work for the nation.

Okechukwu said that it was not unusual for controversy to erupt after the appointment to an important and strategic office like the chairman of EFCC, without regard to whether the appointment conforms with extant laws.

He said: “One has carefully taken a cursory analysis of the raging debate and came to the inevitable conclusion that Ola Olukoyede’s traducers had forgotten the famous and ageless maxim of the foremost physician of all time, Albert Einstein.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

“Olukoyede’s appointment was a remedy as EFCC was formed to provide an alternative for higher performance in waging the Herculean anti-graft war crusade.

“Therefore, his appointment from the fraud angle of the noble legal profession is an appropriate alternative for reforms. Doing otherwise is akin to doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

He added: “As the intendment of the law is that emphasis should be laid on cognate experience. The reforms contemplated by the Renewed Agenda of President Tinubu can only be achieved under an informed insider with requisite legal tools, not a learner. That, to me, is the essential thrust of Olukoyede’s appointment.

“Having served as a member of the Technical Committee of the Presidential Advisory Council on Corruption, as well as a member of the Technical Committee on the Repositioning of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), he should, with fine combs, fish out billions of dollars stashed abroad, and bail Nigerians out of the economic quagmire and debt burden; for common sense dictates that it cannot be only Gen Abacha’s loot.”