Ola Olukoyede, the executive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has blamed the neglect of cultural values for the high rate of corruption in the country.

He said this on Tuesday when Biodun Ajiboye, executive secretary of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.

The visit was to discuss inter-agency collaborations toward re-orienting Nigerians on the need to revive their cultural values as a tool to fight and eradicate corruption in the country.

In a statement by Caleb Nor, the media aide to Mr Ajiboye, Mr Olukeyede said EFCC was doing its best to curb the menace of corruption to a reasonable level.

Mr Olukoyede said a way to achieve the EFCC’s mandate was through citizens’ cultural orientation on the high level of moral decadence and completely broken values.

“What does not belong to you, you don’t have business with it, and if we have moral and value re-orientation of the citizenry, it will help us achieve a lot,” said Mr Olukoyede.

The EFCC chairman said crime prevention must be prioritised instead of convictions. He stressed the need to identify loopholes and re-orientate people on avoiding crimes.

“Basic orientation is needed for Nigerians to understand the need to avoid engagements in criminal vices, and we will not mind giving your Institute a desk in the commission to see how we can join forces in re-orienting Nigerians.

“Because if we go back to our values and with the potency it has to take away the issue of moral decadence, I can assure you that it will reduce the bulk of my work,” he said.

Responding, Mr Ajiboye said such collaboration would assist in tackling financial crimes and fraudulent activities through the cultural and psychological re-wiring of Nigerians to the nation’s cultural ideals and ways of life.

He noted that it would equally step up the advocacy to return Nigeria’s cherished cultural values.

Clamouring for the return of cultural values as a solution to corruption, Mr Ajiboye disclosed that the institute was powered by law to serve as a focus for orientation in cultural matters for Nigerian policymakers.

He proposed the training of senior officers of the commission by the institute for improved productivity, noting that “no culture in Nigeria encourages criminal behaviour or greed.”

“However, these values have been replaced with a foreign culture of covetousness, which is evidenced in the ever-increasing rate of internet fraudsters or ‘yahoo yahoo’ as they are popularly called, as well as other corrupt practices like embezzlement or misappropriation of public funds,” he said.

According to him, NICO can effectively train and equip commission officers with valuable cultural orientation training. 

(NAN)