The Commissioner of Police, Special Fraud Unit(SFU), Ikoyi, Lagos, Ayotunde Ogunsakin, has vowed to deal ruthlessly with fraudsters in his investigation against corruption. He also spoke on why Senator Bukola Saraki, has not been prosecuted in this interview with Oluwole Adeboye. Excerpts 

Sir what's the update on Saraki's case and why have you refused to prosecute him?

It's not that we have refused to prosecute him, you must be aware that we are doing a very extensive and painstaking investigation, we don't want a situation where we rush him to court and the case will be thrown out. As it is now, we have carried out extensive investigation and it involves a lot of work. However, what I can tell you at this stage is that investigation is almost concluded. The whole world we know when we conclude the investigation. It's not a case that can be hidden as it involves an important personality and some other individuals. So we are doing  a painstaking and intensive investigation so as not to get to court unprepared. That's all I can tell you. We want to be as diligent as possible.

We are aware that you are investigating a case in FAAN, can we get the update?

Yes, that is also a very critical case in the sense that it has to be extensive as we want it to be. It has to do with the officials of FAAN, Senior officials of FAAN past and present; senior officials of Ministry of Aviation, past and present; very senior officials. I won't be able to give details now so as not to impede our investigation. Since some of the people we are investigating are still in office, we don't want to give all the details out. However, I can tell you it has to do with funds and inappropriate use of funds, inappropriate funding in terms of training outside Nigeria and inappropriateness in the award of contracts. These are some of the allegations…and you know the issue of FAAN is very sensitive as it has to do with planes flying and all that, especially with the problems in the aviation industry. We want to be as painstaking as possible, and we don't want our investigation to disrupt operations at the airport.

Most time when you charge suspects to court, when they are granted bail, they come back to the same crime. What do you think is the solution?

I think that's the society issue. Like you are aware that we arrested a guy recently who committed the same offence and we took him to court; at the court he was granted bail but as soon as he was out, he was discovered to have gone and defraud another person, committing same offence and so we had to pick him up again. I think it has to do with justice administration, and it appears that the justice system is slow but surely we will get there. At times maybe we need to review our laws too, to tackle issues like this, so there can be an improvement in our legislation, especially in fraud cases like this. Or other issues that require National Assembly to look into our fraud and evidence cases, so that when something like this comes up, they can also assist the police to curb such offences. What I can say is that we cannot say the judiciary isn't doing enough but like all facets of the society, the police reform and the judiciary are places we should look into as well. Our legislation also has to be looked at.

You've been in charge for some time now; can we know some of your unit's successes in investigations?

The inspector General of police came in at a time the Police need his kind of leadership and you will agree with me that he is providing this leadership very well. In posting us to the Special Fraud Unit, he gave us the matching order to try and go ahead with his vision of reform and the SFU is part of the Inspector General of Police and the management team's reform, reform in terms of bringing the SFU to be at par with the Fraud Unit in London or elsewhere and to curb corruption in the police. You know he has zero tolerance for corruption, and that's exactly what we are doing. Since we came here we have tried to reorganise this place, for effective investigation and prosecution. So we have been able to change the teams and do a kind of training and retraining of our men. That's internally for them to know and appreciate the benefit of the reform the IG has introduced. Now, we have manageable teams, we grouped and placed them in specific positions where they can really give their utmost best. We have the cooperation of some stakeholders especially in the NDIC. They have given us about three senior managers who are forensic investigators. And they are really helping us, and through the ministry of Justice in Lagos State, they have given us a very senior counsel, who is a prosecutor with 23 years of experience to aid our investigation and, not just that, we have been able to reinforce our crime department to the extent that MultiChoice has provided us with an office where we can carry out effective investigation. In other words, we have and investigation room that is well equipped that can be compared to that in UK. That I can monitor investigation from my office here and I can even communicate with the investigators without the suspects aware that they are being recorded. We are also developing our computer room to the extent that we have opened websites now, so that people can see what we are doing. Globally, we are reachable through our website. You can talk or inform us of any matters. We have had people report cases from UK, America and other overseas country through our website. So these are some of the reforms going on here that are assisting us in our investigations and making them effective.

There is upsurge in corruption among the youths. How prepared are you to curtail this?

Yes, it is a sorry situation that our youths are taking to crime, drugs and all that but what we intend to do is design a project that will involve us going to schools to educate our youths, intimating them about the ills of crime, so that as they grow up they can imbibe the attitude that crime doesn't pay and why they shouldn't take to it. Especially as it regards the intent frauds, the youths require education. So we have that plan to sensitise our youths; in the schools, in the colleges and everywhere. These are things we are going into. Aside from fighting crime by arresting offenders we want a situation where we can go to schools and tell what and what constitute crime and the effect of criminality.

Can we say crime rate in Nigeria is higher compared to other countries as it is often indicated?

I don't think it is true to say that crime rate is higher in Nigeria that elsewhere, like USA, South Africa or UK. But you know the way Western press report cases or negative things about Africa generally is alarming but if you go to the street of New York, Chicago, UK and other places, you will see murder and fraud cases happening every day, but the foreign press rather exaggerates negative stories about Africa, they make it look like it is only in Africa that we see such…It's just because of what they like to report. That doesn't take away the fact that we do good things here. The number of those that take to crime in Nigeria are a tolerable few when compared to the level of those doing well. Don't forget that the level of poverty pushes people to crime. Poverty shouldn't be reason for people to take to crime, but then poverty makes it easy for people to go into crime. That's not to say only poor people take to crime. Most of the white-collar crimes are done by people who are in the middle class in the society, those who use their pen to manipulate papers and do fraud. So, it's not just poverty that leads to crime.

Since you resumed here as CP, you have done a lot of reforms. How did you do it?

As I said before, I have the backing and order of the Inspector General of Police to come here and make the changes. And whatever changes you are seeing here is directed by the IG of police. What we are doing is in conformity with the programme of the IG and his team. So whatever praise you want to give should go to the IG. But we are happy that he is giving us the encouragement and leadership to do the little we are doing here.

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