On Thursday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Mr. Ola Olukoyede as the new Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. This comes nearly four months after he suspended the erstwhile anti-graft agency chief, Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa.
A statement by presidential spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, said by the powers vested in President Tinubu as established in section 2 (3) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, 2004, that “the Chairman and members of the Commission, other than ex-officio members, shall be appointed by the President.”
Olukoyede is a lawyer with over 22 years of experience as a regulatory compliance consultant and specialist in fraud management and corporate intelligence, Ngelale maintained.
As gathered, he has extensive experience in the operations of the EFCC, having previously served as Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman (2016-2018) and Secretary to the Commission (2018-2023). As such, he fulfills the statutory requirement for appointment as Chairman of the EFCC.
“Olukoyede’s appointment follows the resignation of the suspended Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa,” he said.
Furthermore, the presidential spokesman said President Tinubu has approved the appointment of Muhammad Hassan Hammajoda to serve as Secretary of the anti-graft Commission for a renewable term of five years in the first instance, pending Senate confirmation.
“Muhammad Hassan Hammajoda is a public administrator with extensive experience in public finance management who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Maiduguri and a Masters in Business Administration from the same university.
“He began his career as a lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi. From there, he went into banking, including successful stints at the defunct Allied Bank and Standard Trust Bank.
“President Bola Tinubu tasks the new leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to justify the confidence given to them in this important national assignment as a newly invigorated war on corruption undertaken through a reformed institutional architecture in the anti-corruption sector remains a central pillar of the President’s Renewed Hope agenda,” he said.
|Vanguard
