NiMet DG commends EFCC chairman for giving human face to anti-corruption fight

The Director General and Chief Executive Officer, DG/CEO of Nigeria Meteorological Agency, NiMet, Professor Charles Anosike, has commended the Executive Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, for giving  a  human face to the anti-corruption fight.

He gave the plaudits on Thursday when he led the management team of the Agency on a courtesy visit to Olukoyede at EFCC’s corporate headquarters, Jabi, Abuja.

“One major area that drew my attention and instigated my interest in the new leadership is the human face the Chairman has given the EFCC, calling for a collective action in the anti-corruption fight as a preventive measure to dealing with ethics and strengthening of behavioural change. So I think that’s a key area because whenever you come to office and you want to bring in new things to change the behaviour of people, you often meet resistance. So, what the Chairman has done with this, for us, is to build capacity and it is for us to learn from and know how to deal with change management and be able to assess risk; be able to deal with project completion, be able to deal with contractors,” he said.

Anosike who expressed a strong desire for an EFCC-NiMet collaboration in setting up a wide area network of weather infrastructure which, he said demanded a lawful and judicious use of financial resources, noted that NiMet needed “a very consistent and deliberate effort to partner and collaborate with the EFCC in order to build capacity in the area of risk assessment.”

According to him, “the EFCC is uniquely positioned to collaborate with us so that we can prevent these things from onset, rather than being reactive. We want to be proactive and nip it in the bud before it happens. So, this opportunity is to highlight and also emphasize the critical nature of what we do.

“We have weather stations in our coastal region where we provide NIMASA, NPA and also NIWA with weather information for the safety of ocean-going vessels. Also,  we do the same thing in oil and gas. We also do the same for shipping lines. NiMet is positioned to provide weather and climate information for safety of air navigation, for safety and better planning and decision making for farmers. These are key areas that we are working on.  So partnering with EFCC will actually help us to make judicious use of government resources.”

The Secretary to the Commission, Mohammed Hammajoda, who received the delegation on behalf of Olukoyede, expressed delight with the visit and assured the delegation that the doors of the Commission were open for stakeholders’ collaboration that would move the country forward.

“When we come together, we become stronger. We set up our Risk Assessment Department, a full-fledged department with trained staff, so for your risk assessment, this is the home. We also have a Procurement Risk Assessment Department. Anytime you need anything for us to do for you, this is the starting point. We are here 247 to collaborate with you.

While lending his voice on the preparedness of the EFCC to collaborate, the Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman, Commander of the EFCC, CE Michael Nzekwe observed that “stakeholders’ collaboration is one of our core values at the EFCC, so once we see stakeholders identifying with us, it’s usually something that is of joy to us. I like the preventive part that you touched. The Executive Chairman prioritizes prevention, that’s why the Department of Fraud Risk Assessment was put together, because no matter how much you recover, you can never entirely recover the full sum when you get into investigation,” he said.