EFCC, NAFDAC Join Forces Against Economic Sabotage

EFCC, NAFDAC Join Forces Against Economic Sabotage

The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, on Wednesday, 30 July 2025, reiterated the Commission’s resolve to work with the National Agency For Food, Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, to fight economic sabotage and ensure compliance in the health sector.

Olukoyede gave the assurance in Abuja when the Director General of NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye paid him a courtesy visit at the EFCC’s headquarters.

He emphasised the need to ensure compliance adding that without compliance, all efforts at fighting corruption and ensuring Nigeria’s development will be in vain.

“I am someone who believes in compliance. Without compliance you can’t get anywhere, the difference between the third world countries and advanced countries is just the issue of compliance, people do the right things, they also follow the rules”, he said.

Speaking on collaboration and why it is important to the EFCC, Olukoyede stated that the mandate of the EFCC allows the Commission to collaborate with all stakeholders to tackle financial crimes and economic sabotage.

“There is an aspect of our mandate that will help us to collaborate with you people always and it is the financial crimes aspect, there is also the economic sabotage aspect of our work, that is why we are called economic and financial crimes and the essence of that, is that if anybody in the course of carrying out an economic activity, takes undue advantage of the loopholes in our laws and our regulations for pecuniary or financial gains, we can go and investigate and prosecute. So, it is not only when somebody carries money or all of that, as a matter of fact, if you burst our oil pipelines, we can investigate and prosecute, that is part of economic sabotage”, he said.

Continuing, the EFCC’s boss stressed that, “those who bring in fake products, fake drugs and all of that, we have a mandate to prosecute them. I know you are purely a regulatory agency and I wouldn’t know the extent of the power of your enforcement. Anywhere you establish a pecuniary gain or financial gain, we can come in . Going forward, we pledge our commitment and support in the course that you have set out to achieve”, he said.

Speaking on the visit, Professor Adeyeye stated she came with her team to foster collaboration between the two agencies and to sustain the fight against corruption through compliance and blocking economic sabotage.

Describing corruption as a hydra-headed monster, Adeyeye stated that one of the ways to fight corruption is to have a platform of collaboration with all stakeholders and the society at large.

“NAFDAC wants to collaborate with security agencies. I like things to work but you need tools to make it work and these tools are about sensitization”, she said. We need to make things work, we are not created differently, in fact we are endowed, we are not created differently from people in other countries. We need help in terms of tools. We still have staff that may want to compromise, we have client that may want to compromise”, she said.