The Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said Edo is the second highest in its ranking of financial-related crime convictions across states in the country.
Zonal Director of the agency in charge of Edo, Delta and Ondo states, Effa Okim, made this known while on a courtesy visit to the State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ in Benin City.
Okim, who expressed worry over the statistics, noted that it was not a good reputation for the citizens and residents of the state.
The EFCC boss decried how cybercrime, popularly known as ‘yahoo yahoo’ had led some children to go into ritual, adding that they had even resorted to using their parents for money rituals.
While noting that such crime undermined the culture, tradition and sanctity of the Nigerian state, he, however, blamed parents for not checkmating their children.
He said the commission was ready to partner with the media “to reduce the visibility of crime on our streets, especially the cybercrime being perpetuated by children, mostly underaged”.
He also vowed that parents who normally claimed that their children were underage when convicted would also go in for it for their complicity in the forgery of documents.
Okim said; “The statistics that we have is that Edo is after Lagos State in terms of conviction. It calls for concern. It is not a good reputation and for me, Edo is too great in the Nigerian history to be reduced to that level in terms of criminality.
“Crime, what we call yahoo yahoo, is visible in our streets. When you walk on our streets, when you visit our hotels per second you see these boys and it is so visible, disturbing.
“Often because they go and agree with some authorities and do age declaration stating that they are eighteen just to enable them to open accounts and put their criminal structures in place. And at the end, when they are arrested, their fathers will come and say their children are underage.
“We are asking them where were you when he got his driver’s license? Where were you when your underage son opened an account because in Nigerian law an underage cannot open an account? Where were you when your son was spending money in an irresponsible manner.”
Leave a Comment