The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ola Olukoyede, has decried the activities of internet fraudsters, popularly known as Yahoo Boys, revealing how over N7.2 million was wiped from the bank account of a serving judge through a series of midnight debit transactions.
Olukoyede made the revelation while speaking during the public presentation of two books authored by a retired high court judge, Justice Alaba Omolaye-Ajileye, in Abuja.
The EFCC Chairman said he was woken from sleep around 1am by a distress call from a judge in one of the South-South states who had fallen victim to scammers.
“What was the problem? She had just been scammed of the money she had been putting together for six years to send her child to school.
“She said it was alerts that woke her up. She received debits at that time of the day. Was it that the bank was at work, or what could be going on?
“Before she knew it, she had been scammed of about N7.2 million. So she put a call through to me that I had to do something. “Incidentally, it was the state where they got an order against the EFCC from investigating certain crimes. And she said, ‘My lord, I have an order, an injunction not to investigate financial crimes in that state.’
“She said, ‘No, no, no! This is an exception. You must do something immediately!’ “Do you understand the point I am trying to make here? When you become a direct victim, that is when you’ll know that something has to be done.
“Before 6pm, we recovered the entire money for her. I am very sure that if an application comes before her, my lord, to stop the EFCC from carrying out its mandate, she will dismiss it because she has become a victim. “So, it is important for us to understand the depth of this problem.”
Therefore, the EFCC Chairman said there was a need for a collaborative effort by relevant stakeholders to strengthen the fight against financial crimes in the country.
“Not until we, as Nigerians, come together and agree to face this challenge — law enforcement agencies playing their role, citizens doing their part, and the judiciary too doing its part — it is only then that we will be able to put this problem behind us. “We can do it. Nigeria can do it, and we will do it and succeed,” he added.
Besides, Olukayode drew attention to the emergence of AI, stressing that more work needs to be done in that area. “Now we have already started deploying the tools of AI in the investigation of crime. But what I am cracking my brain about is how do I generate evidence and make it admissible?
“It is a bit difficult from what Section 84 of the Evidence Act provided for. This is because now we talk of a robot. Is a robot a human being? Being an electronic device doing the work of a human being, robots can now think for you. Robots can do anything human beings can do.
“So we are looking at that area. I wish our legislators and professors of law will take time and come together to look at this area and come up with laws that will help us in the area of AI,” the EFCC Chairman pleaded.
Meanwhile, in his keynote address at the event, a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN, tasked the EFCC and other related agencies to work harder to ensure the repatriation of public funds that were looted and stashed abroad.
“We have billions abroad. This generation would have failed if we do not bring back that money. That is what we must do now,” Agabi, SAN, insisted.
He extolled Justice Omolaye-Ajileye’s virtues, describing him as a man who served and left the bench without blemish.
While a former Chairman of the Body of Benchers, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, demanded stricter enforcement of provisions of the cybercrime law, the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Mr. Tosin Ajayi, who was also a guest at the book launch, argued that conviction of offenders would serve as a deterrent for crimes.
In attendance at the unveiling of the books — Electronic Evidence (Second Edition, with the Evidence Act, 2011) and A Compendium of Cases on Electronic Evidence (Volume II, 2020–2025) — were legal eggheads, including serving and retired judicial officers from the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, and other rungs of courts in the country.
