By Dele Ogbodo
Even as speculated by a section of the Media, President Bola Tinubu on Thursday appointed Mr. Ola Olukoyede as the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, Spokesperson to the president in a statement, said by the powers vested on the President 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.”
The President has therefore approved the appointment of Olukoyede to serve as the Executive Chairman of the EFCC for a renewable term of 4 years in the first instance, pending Senate confirmation.
Olukoyede, the statement added is a lawyer with over 22 years of experience as a regulatory compliance consultant and specialist in fraud management and corporate intelligence.
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), Ngelale, added.
As such, he fulfills the statutory requirement for appointment as Chairman of the EFCC, he said.
Olukoyede’s appointment, the statement further revealed, followed the resignation of the suspended Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa.
Tinubu, has in the same vein approved the appointment of Mr. Muhammad Hassan Hammajoda to serve as the Secretary of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for a renewable term of five years in the first instance, pending Senate confirmation.
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 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.
