The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it has uncovered a religious organisation laundering money for terrorists wreaking havocs in the country.
The chairman of the anti-graft agency, Ola Olukoyede, made this revelation during a one-day dialogue in Abuja, on Wednesday.
Speaking at a programme with the theme: “Youth, Religion, and the Fight against Corruption”, Olukoyede said the religious body was found culpable while protecting a money launderer after some money suspected to have been laundered was traced to the organisation’s bank account.
“A religious sect in this country had been found to be laundering money for terrorists. We were able to trace some laundered money to a religious organisation.”
“When we approached the religious organisation about it and we were carrying out our investigation, we got a restraining order stopping us from carrying out our investigation,” the EFCC boss said.
Daily Trust reports that the one-day event was aimed at addressing the challenges of youth involvement in cybercrimes and how religion could be used for their reorientation.
The theme, which also featured the launch of the Interfaith Preaching and Teaching Manual developed by the Interfaith Anti-Corruption Advisory Committee of the Commission, was to instigate abhorrence for corruption among adherents of Islam and Christianity.
Speaking at the event, the EFCC boss also disclosed that not less than N7 billion fraud proceeds was traced to another religious organisation, explaining that one of such religious bodies dragged the commission to court to protect its leader after laundered money was traced to its bank account.
The anti-graft czar vowed that the agency won’t succumb to pressure from various quarters, adding that the EFCC would block and prosecute those culpable in the terrorism financing in line with the laws of the land.
Olukoyede stated, “We will not give up on recovering the stolen funds. It is so sad that as I stand before the eminent audience today, that our experience in fighting corruption has to do with the religious leaders and even traditional rulers.
“As I stand before you there is a matter we are handling of over 30 billion fleeced from Nigeria, and we were able to trace N7 billion to a particular religious body. As we wrote a letter to the leader, the next thing we saw was a restraining order, stopping us from inviting them, stopping us from recovering the money.”
According to him, the EFCC had appealed the restraining order against the commission and other critical steps to strengthen the fight have been put in place to win the fight against those who he described as “enemies of Nigeria”
He also revealed that since he assumed office about three months ago, the anti-graft commission had secured 747 convictions, but over 60 per cent of the convictions were cybercrime cases.
“To our faith leaders, my appeal is that those who lead our society from churches and mosques should develop messages that glorify industry, hard work, probity and contentment over riches, irrespective of how it was made.”
“We all must stand up and be counted in the efforts to reset the mentality of our youths that the fast lane to affluence is fraud. Aside from our commitment to using faith to tackle corruption in various levels of society.
“We have also developed a remarkable tool which we intend to deploy to prevent corruption in our Ministries, Department and Agencies,” he said.
According to him, the tool, a Fraud Risk Assessment Project, is meant to assist government agencies to address systemic vulnerabilities at the personal, institutional and environmental levels.
“When fully deployed, it will save the nation billions of Naira in stolen wealth, time and resources spent in investigating grand corruption cases.
“The project is intended to commence, in the first instance, with 20 extremely vulnerable agencies of government.
“We believe that with the support of the government and the cooperation of the leadership of the selected agencies, we will be able to drastically close the space for brazen graft in the public sector,” he said.
Our correspondent reports that the anti-graft agency’s Fraud Risk Assessment Prevention and Control Project for Ministries, Departments and Agencies was also inaugurated during the event.
