Steve Osuji’s “EFCC’s alarming impunity” and trumped-up “charges” against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and its Executive Chairman, Mr Ola Olukoyede, leave so much to be desired. Reading through the poorly researched piece by a former editor clearly showed a hard struggle to assemble a tissue of lies that fell flat in the face of glaring facts and verifiable records of the EFCC in its relentless tackles against corruption in the land.
The first salvo the former editor fired was against the past and current leadership of the EFCC. More worrisome was his attack on Olukoyede for no justifiable reason. Allegations of a lack of transparency, accountability and integrity deficit are wild and clearly off the mark. In all the strings of unwarranted abuses woven together by Osuji, none of them specifically identified any breach of integrity by the EFCC’s boss.
In one breath, he sneered, “Coming from the campus of former Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo; being a senior pastor of the Redeemed Church of Nigeria and being a lawyer exposed and groomed in some of the best institutions, we thought we couldn’t find a better specimen of human on earth. But woe, alas, even the venerable gentleman chairman has fallen far short.”
The question is, in what way has Olukoyede fallen short? Is it by insisting that the right things should always be done? By moving the nation’s anti-graft war forward radically and unprecedentedly? By bringing forth a preventive framework to tackle corruption and reaping bountiful gains for the nation? By recovering the globally acclaimed 753 duplexes and other apartments, which are proceeds of fraudulent dealings, for the nation? By launching the EFCC into a global map of accomplished anti-graft agencies? By handling 50,000 case files in one year? By embarking on a courageous internal cleansing system and other progressive initiatives to deepen and strengthen the anti-corruption fight? It is cowardly and uncharitable for any columnist to hide under a vague and opaque cover to splash mud on Ola Olukoyede, arguably one of the finest breeds of anti-graft czars around the world.
Osuji’s diatribe is pathetic, especially when the subject of his attack, a few months earlier, had received acclaim and endorsement from two of the world’s leading law enforcement leaders, the immediate past Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray and the Director General of the UK National Crime Agency, Graeme Biggar. Both of them were guests of Olukoyede in Abuja, in an unprecedented gesture, to acknowledge his inspirational leadership of the EFCC and solicit closer partnership with the commission in dealing with organised crimes.
Ironically, Osuji devoted 50 per cent of his essay to rummaging through Sonala Olumhense’s archive of acerbic commentaries on the EFCC. His devotion to Olumhense is not borne out of reverence or respect for the fecundity of his postulations. Rather, it is a marriage of convenience. He needed ammunition to make his mumble jumble appear plausible to less discerning readers, and Olumhense’s histrionics fit the bill. It is very well known that Olumhense is an incurable cynic who feasts on the commission’s yearly obligation to submit a report to the National Assembly to revive his fading profile as a celebrated columnist by dishing out falsehoods about the commission’s touted non-compliance with statutory obligations. It is ingrained in his mind that EFCC never submits annual reports to the National Assembly, and no information to the contrary will dissuade him. Several times in the past, the commission had taken him to task on these disinformation gambits, but he seems irredeemably lost to reason.
The commission has never failed to submit its annual report to the National Assembly every September as it is statutorily required. This is verifiable. The National Assembly is not in Sambisa Forest or Iceland. It is accessible. Its records are verifiable. Osuji knows the truth, but he willfully embraced Olumhense’s false narratives because it suits his agenda. How can a claim that “EFCC deliberately keeps no records, nor does it release the statutory annual report and accounts of its activities” hold any water?
Equally preposterous are claims of re-looting of assets by officers of the commission. For clarification, the commission does not recover monetary assets into its coffers, and the non-monetary assets that are recovered are disposed of following clear pronouncements by the court and proceeds paid into the Confiscated and Forfeited Properties Account in the central bank in line with provisions of the Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Act, 2022. As a journalist of well over three decades’ experience, I expected Osuji to wear an investigative cap and approach the necessary government agencies to confirm where recovered funds are kept, before jumping to the defence of a citizen or a client.
Besides, it is an open knowledge that just last year, President Bola Tinubu, in a characteristic show of openness, visionary drives and accountable conduct, instructed the EFCC to release N100bn from its Recovery Account to NELFUND and CREDICORP. The two agencies are pulsating with life and affecting lives through the seed capital drawn from EFCC’s recoveries.
At several fora, Olukoyede has been unequivocal in telling Nigerians that under his watch, every single kobo recovered from fraudsters would not only be accounted for, but it would be monitored to establish that it is not re-looted. In this regard, a few weeks ago, he was at the commissioning of an Area Office and a Skill Acquisition Centre in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state, to confirm that funds recovered for the Niger Delta Development Commission were deployed for the use for which they are meant. In another breath, he visited the former NOK University in Kachia, Kaduna State, which was proceeds of crime and recovered assets from a former public official. The university was converted to a Federal University of Applied Sciences by the Federal Government. The EFCC’s boss was physically present to oversee the assets.
The EFCC does not operate in secrecy. All its operations are regularly communicated to the public, including the public auction of assets. To deliberately cast the commission in the mould of fraudulent engagements or criminality is not only mischievous but also untenable.
Shed of all sophistry, Osuji’s naked dance is about House No. 6, Aso Drive, Asokoro and his sabre-rattling is undeniably at the behest of Ikechi Emenike, a former tenant in the property, who is goaded by a sense of entitlement that he is the only Nigerian qualified to benefit from any auction of the forfeited property.
Osuji is accusing EFCC of “impunity and outright ‘pilfering’ of a property”; it has not been handed to Emenike. As a responsible anti-corruption agency, the commission detailed facts about the property in a press statement on June 25, 2025. The property in question was proceeds of crime, and Justice Musa Liman of the Federal High Court granted an order of possession of the property to the EFCC on March 27, 2025. He granted the order when the commission submitted that the property was proceeds of an unlawful act by a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Dezani Allison-Madueke and forfeited to the government through an order of final forfeiture.
It is needful to state that the commission neither suppressed nor misrepresented any material facts before the court in securing an ex-parte order on March 27, 2025, to get Emenike, a tenant in the house, to vacate the property because the contempt proceedings in another court had no bearing on the judgment granting the possession of the property to the EFCC.
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