The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has dismissed more than 40 members of its personnel over alleged corruption and financial malpractice in the past two and a half years.
The EFCC Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, disclosed this in Abuja during a press briefing on Monday.
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Mr Olukoyede stated that more than five of the dismissed officers were already facing prosecution, while the commission was preparing case files against others for possible prosecution.
“In the past two and a half years or three years of my service, I have asked them to dismiss over 40 staff on account of corruption and financial malpractice,” he said.
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“More than five of them are being prosecuted at the moment. You can follow those cases in court; they are public knowledge.”
The chairman explained that the disciplinary measures were part of efforts to ensure that EFCC personnel maintained the level of integrity expected of officers responsible for investigating and prosecuting corruption cases.
He noted that the commission had also introduced measures to strengthen accountability among its staff, including a new policy regulating the acceptance and declaration of gifts.
Under the policy, personnel would be required to declare gifts above a specified value, including those received from relatives abroad.
Mr Olukoyede stressed that the commission would define the categories and value of gifts staff could accept, noting that the policy was intended to ensure that officers could account for their sources of income and standards of living.
“EFCC personnel cannot effectively fight corruption while engaging in corrupt practices themselves,” he said.
As part of the internal reforms, the commission has also renamed its former Department of Internal Affairs as the Department of Ethics and Integrity.
The chairman said the change reflected the commission’s effort to place greater emphasis on ethical conduct and internal accountability.
PREMIUM TIMES reported earlier that the chairman accounted for his stewardship in the last 34 months, during which the organisation recovered the sum of N1.23 trillion and $684.48 million in proceeds of crime between October 2023 and July 2026.
He explained that out of the recovered proceeds, N397.26 billion was recovered directly for the Federal Government.
The remaining N836.35 billion went to individuals, companies, government agencies and other beneficiaries.
The latest figures represent an increase from the October 2025 report, where the agency announced the recovery of N566 billion and $411 million in assets.
It showed that the EFCC received 49,673 petitions during the period and investigated 39,615. Of those investigations, 14,476 ended up in court, while the commission secured 10,872 convictions.
That means the EFCC investigated nearly four out of every five petitions it received and secured convictions in about three-quarters of the cases it took to court.
The commission’s detailed recovery table put the naira figure at N1,233,612,040,411.11 and dollar recoveries at $684,478,457.32.
The money was recovered in 16 currencies across five continents. Other recoveries included £373,905.78, €9.34 million, CFA58.73 million and 463,660 Saudi riyals.
Billions released to beneficiaries
Of the recovered funds, N661.32 billion and $492.37 million had been released to beneficiaries through restitution and other recovery channels, the commission reported.
Another N71.01 billion and $18.29 million remained in recovery accounts or with exhibit keepers pending verification of their rightful owners.
Among the beneficiaries were the Internal Revenue Services of Edo, Kwara, Oyo and Sokoto states, which received N97.98 billion.
The EFCC stated that N114.9 billion in tax recoveries was attributed to state internal revenue services.
Federal ministries, departments and agencies received N257.2 billion and $126.4 million, while public corporate bodies received N2.49 billion. Private companies received N350.4 million and individuals N1.02 billion.
Other recoveries
The anti-graft agency also recorded its highest annual naira recovery in 2025, when it recovered N521.3 billion.
According to the commission, total naira recoveries rose by 43 per cent between 2024 and 2025, while direct recoveries for the Federal Government increased by 429 per cent.
In the first six months of 2026, the commission recovered N201.9 billion, although it cautioned that the figure had not been annualised.
Dollar recoveries for the Federal Government also rose. The EFCC recovered $123.7 million in the first half of 2026, compared with $66.7 million between October 2023 and the end of 2025.
Advance-fee fraud and cybercrime accounted for more than 62 per cent of the 46,288 offences recorded by the commission during the period.
Advance-fee fraud made up the largest share, with 20,726 offences, followed by cybercrime with 8,222. Money laundering ranked third with 5,620 offences.
Bank fraud accounted for 3,328 offences, while economic governance fraud recorded 3,167 and land and property fraud 2,464.
Other offences included extractive industrial fraud, procurement fraud and tax fraud.
The EFCC recorded 9,015 offences in 2023, 20,640 in 2024 and 16,633 in 2025.
The commission secured interim and final forfeiture orders covering 10,053 assets during the 34-month period.
The assets included 8,198 electronics, 1,177 real estate properties, 370 automobiles and 251 plots of land.
Forfeiture orders also covered 32 schools, factories, hotels and shops, 25 oil rigs, barges and other machinery, as well as 102 tonnes of solid minerals.
The EFCC explained that other assets included a N450 million insurance policy, N250 million in Treasury bills and 40,844,094 shares valued at N1.05 billion and $4.4 million.
The EFCC reported 920 specialised cases involving money laundering, bureau de change operations, illegal mining, virtual assets and terrorist financing.
Of these, 680 were still active while 212 had produced convictions.
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