Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Ola Olukoyede has dangled a lucrative financial incentive of up to 5 percent of recovered funds to international whistleblowers with actionable intelligence on Nigerian assets stashed abroad.
Speaking on Wednesday at the 43rd Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom, Olukoyede emphasized that informants holding credible details on illicitly acquired foreign assets stand to reap substantial windfalls upon successful recovery.
”If any one of you is privy to where Nigerian assets are stolen or taken to anywhere in the world, we have an incentive for you; between 2.5% and 5% is going to go back to you upon recovery,” Olukoyede told the global gathering of anti-corruption experts. “You never can tell, if you give any information here, some of you may leave this place multi-millionaires in your lifetime.”
Highlighting the anti-graft agency’s operational milestones, the EFCC boss revealed that the Commission has secured the forfeiture of cash and assets valued at over half a billion dollars within less than three years of his tenure. He attributed these sweeping recoveries to the resourcefulness of the agency’s investigators, a robust judiciary, and a steady stream of credible intelligence.
Olukoyede detailed the deployment of Nigeria’s non-conviction-based asset forfeiture framework, noting that the legal mechanism mirrors practices in countries like Australia and Canada. This approach empowers the anti-graft body to pursue the seizure of suspected proceeds of crime without waiting for the conclusion of prolonged criminal trials—a strategy that has yielded luxury aircraft, a university, extensive estates, and high-value residential properties.
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Citing specific high-profile cases, the EFCC chairman pointed to the interim and final forfeitures tied to former senior government officials. These include 752 housing units recovered in connection with the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, alongside ongoing investigations into the assets of former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami. According to Olukoyede, probes into Malami’s assets uncovered 57 properties acquired over an eight-year period, out of which 48 have successfully been forfeited to the federal government.
The Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime is a premier annual event convening global jurists, law enforcement agents, and financial crime fighters to strategize on cutting-edge methods of combating transnational illicit financial flows.