THE Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, has reiterated the need for stronger collaboration among anti-corruption agencies to tackle financial crimes and corruption in Nigeria effectively.

In a post from the commission’s X on Wednesday, Olukoyede made the call in Abuja during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the EFCC and the Code of Conduct Bureau, led by its Chairman, Abdullahi Bello.

He described corruption as a major obstacle to Nigeria’s development, linking it to poverty, hunger, lack of infrastructure, and general underdevelopment. According to him, greater synergy among agencies is essential to confronting the problem head-on.

“All of us are key players in the anti-corruption fight. Everybody will agree with us that one of the major problems behind poverty, hunger, malnutrition, lack of infrastructure, and generally lack of development in Nigeria is the issue of financial crimes and corruption.

If we can make up our minds, work together as a team, and ensure that we confront it frontally, we’ll probably take Nigeria out of this mess. We can complement each other.

“There’s no doubting the fact that we need to collaborate and synergise. We must not compete. We must collaborate and work with sincerity of purpose,” Olukoyede said, adding that coordinated efforts would produce more impactful results in the anti-graft campaign.

In his remarks, Bello said the agreement marked a significant milestone in strengthening institutional partnership between the CCB and EFCC. (The Guardian)