EFCC's Magu discloses plan to make use of yahoo boys in future

Ibrahim Magu, the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has said yahoo boys can be useful for the anti-graft agency in the future.

While delivering a paper titled, ‘Strategic change administration and innovation to curb corruption in Nigeria,’ at the third All Administrators National Conference of the Chartered Institute of Administration (CIA), Magu stated that the anti-graft agency is looking at exploring some window of opportunities with the yahoo boys.

In this light, Ibrahim Magu said the Commission is planning to rehabilitate those arrested for engaging in internet fraud.

The EFCC had on Monday, October 14, 2019, stormed a nightclub, in Osogbo, Osun, and arrested not less than 94 suspected yahoo boys. [@officialEFCC/Twitter] Pulse Nigeria

Speaking on collaboration between the Nigerian graft agency and other countries, Magu disclosed that the EFCC had secured collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member-states to aid in the prosecution of cross-border crimes.

Ibrahim Magu said, “So if you carry money from Nigeria and escape to Ghana, we will just call the men in Ghana and say, ‘arrange this man and keep him for me. This is what the Yahoo-Yahoo boys like to do. But we are planning to rehabilitate them because they can be useful to us in future.”

Magu, however, revealed that the war against internet fraud has paid off so far, as the anti-graft agency had been able to secure 614 convictions between January and September 2019.

The EFCC boss attributed the convictions to increase in the agency’s zonal offices from seven in 2009 to 18 in 2018.

Ibrahim Magu further called for synergy with other organisations in the fight against corruption, enjoining the CIA to collaborate with the agency in the fight by making sure that they administer their affairs in a corruption-free manner.

He also called on civil society organisations and members of the public to report cases of corruption to the agency.