Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa–Onilu has said that his Agency will work closely with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in its crusade against economic and financial crimes.
He gave the assurance on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, at a Two-Day Stakeholder’s Retreat on re-engineering NOA programmes for more effective reorientation of Nigerians towards addressing challenges posed by “Crime, Lawlessness, Health Facility Inaccessibility, Environmental degradation, Educational Setback and Deprivation, Abuse of all Forms and Narcotics, CLHEEAN.
Issa-Onilu commended the fighting spirit of the EFCC Chairman, Ola Olukoyede against economic and financial crimes, pointing out that, “NOA’s main objective is to ensure that government’s programs and policies are well communicated for better understanding by the general public”.
“Under my leadership, we at the Agency will utilize our facilities, our human resources to achieve government objectives. We would act as a megaphone to take the message of the government to the expected recipients. The menace of internet fraud and corruption generally is a big minus to the image of the country, we shall work very closely with the EFCC to achieve results, to a very reasonable extent, because a corruption-free society is achievable”, he said.
Issa-Onilu also disclosed that his Agency has a good presence in the 36 states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory, FCT and the 774 Local Government Offices across the country, stressing that “no other agency is better positioned to effectively partner with the EFCC in the fight against economic and financial crimes.”
“The menace of cybercrime is very worrisome. As parents, we must be concerned about the future of our children. We must re-orient their psyche because they are our children. We are not going to turn blind eyes to what they are doing. Statistics have shown that thousands of these youths have been convicted for internet-related offences in recent years. We cannot continue like that”, he said.
While harping on the need for collaboration, he explained that “we must concertedly put on our thinking caps to see how we can save the youths, we must redirect them to the right path, promote patriotism, national unity, and the development of Nigerian society. There is no compromise when it comes to tackling corruption. To achieve the Nigeria of our dream, we must work together with the EFCC to fight crimes”.
Speaking on the 2-Day retreat, the DG says that NOA is re-evaluating its strategies for carrying out its important assignment of sensitization, publicizing and re-orienting the public. “In this regard, the NOA is building strategies around a holistic approach which will emplace an overarching theme under which all the various programmes being run under the Agency’s platforms will be carried out. This overarching theme is tagged: CLHEEAN, an acronym that provides an umbrella under which the various thematic interventions of the Agency will be carried out across the communities in the country”, he said.
