EFCC: We’ll rehabilitate convicted internet fraudsters to make them useful

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced plans to rehabilitate convicted internet fraudsters with lesser sentences as a potent way of reorienting their minds and redirecting their productive energies to positive endeavours.

The Executive Chairman of EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, said this when a delegation of the National Association of University Students (NAUS), led by its President, Obadi Marshal, paid him a courtesy visit at the corporate headquarters of the commission in Abuja on Thursday, March 21, 2024.

“We have a plan to rehabilitate convicted internet fraudsters with lesser sentences. The plan is to work with the correctional centre to make them useful and more productive in the society,” Olukoyede said.

He warned the youths against indulging in internet crimes, stressing that the implication of such an act is grave.

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The EFCC boss added: “When you think deeply, that tag ‘ex-convict’ is not a good thing. You can never tell where you would find yourself tomorrow and they would want to profile you and discover that you are an ex-convict.

“So it is even in the interest of the youth that the EFCC is doing what it is doing to prevent them from indulging in the heinous act of cybercrime.”

Olukoyede further cautioned students against forming parallel organisations to pursue similar interests, saying: “The issue of dichotomies of associations is disturbing.

“Regulate yourselves and the society will take you more seriously.”

He, however, enjoined the students to always avoid hasty judgement of the operations of the EFCC, maintaining that the anti-graft agency is working in the overall interests of the country.

Speaking on the purpose of the visit, Marshal said it was to build synergy with the EFCC in its fight against cybercrimes across Nigerian universities.

He said: “The aim of our visit is to see how we can synergise and partner with the EFCC in eradicating cybercrime in all the higher institutions of learning in the country.

“The National Association of University Students has never been part of it and will never support it; that is why we are at the EFCC to see how we can collaborate to end it. The onus is on us all to save our youths from taking part in it and to save our country.

The Star