Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has cautioned the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ola Olukoyede to stop spreading fallacies with his unrestrained verbal diatribe directed at professional institutions such as banks, lawyers, and religious bodies.
HURIWA noted that the designation of members of these organisations as mostly corrupt as conveyed in the different public conversations of the head of the EFCC is capable of diminishing the credibility of the bodies in the eyes of the international community.
It said that if the EFCC Chairman has evidence of involvement of any member of the professional bodies in corruption related offences, he should prosecute such persons and not adopting a dangerous stereotype about certain organisations since criminality is not domiciled within any identifiable groups but, a human factor.
A statement by Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator of HURIWA, said that it was disconcerting that each time Olukoyede appeared before a public rostrum to deliver lectures or talks beamed by television networks around the World, he often garnishes his talking points with direct accusations of members of such hallowed institutions such as organised religious groups, lawyers and bankers as harbingers or custodians of corrupt practices.
HURIWA said; “This style of systematically and methodically running down the integrity of these bodies is damaging to these institutions and it is just the same as what some western governments do when they see every one bearing Nigeria’s green passport as fantastically corrupt or roguish only because an insignificant number of our Nigerian citizens have been involved in one crime or the other.
“The EFCC can actually do so much and achieve a lot without antagonising the high esteem of professional bodies. The EFCC can have private meetings with heads of professional bodies to raise his views about involvement of some members of professional institutions in corrupt practices instead of using the publicly covered events to make such damaging generalised allegations.
“For instance, even within the EFCC are found some persons who were involved in corrupt practices. But the involvement of some EFCC staff in corruption is not to say that the entire EFCC is corrupt: far from it. Saying such is to dance around fallacy and inaccurate information which may even amount to misinformation,” it said.
HURIWA noted that recently, Olukoyede issued a warning on involvement of bankers in corruption when the management team of Moniepoint, led by its founder and Group CEO, Tosin Eniolorunda paid a courtesy visit to the commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
The EFCC Chairman, also said that no mega financial fraud, especially illicit financial flows, is possible without the support of lawyers.
