NLC Pledges Solid Support for EFCC in Nationwide Anti-Graft Push

​ABUJA — The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has officially renewed its alliance with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), declaring that Nigerian workers stand resolutely behind the anti-graft agency’s mandate.

​The pledge was delivered on Thursday by an NLC delegation led by Akhator Joel Odigie, General Secretary of both the NLC and the International Trade Union Confederation-Africa (ITUC-Africa), during a courtesy visit to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja.

​Odigie explained that the visit forms a core component of a wider continental campaign spearheaded by ITUC-Africa against illicit financial flows (IFFs). Following active rollouts in Zambia and Kenya—with upcoming extensions to Uganda, Ghana, and Senegal—the initiative draws heavily from the African Union-backed Mbeki Panel report. The landmark study revealed that Africa hemorrhaged a cumulative $60 billion annually as of 2005 through tax avoidance, evasion, and capital flight by multinational corporations and wealthy elites, a figure that balloons into trillions when factoring in historical economic exploitation.

​”Our coming today, first, is a way of solidarity. To say we are with you in this fight. Let us fight together. That more than ever before, the fight you are undertaking is on behalf of the Nigerian people, on behalf of the workers,” Odigie stated. He added that the continent functions as a net creditor rather than a net debtor due to massive historical resource extractions.

​Connecting Graft to Workers’ Livelihoods

​Placing workers at the center of the economic debate, the NLC General Secretary tied the anti-corruption crusade directly to the ongoing struggle for a living wage. He argued that systemic graft and illicit outflows deprive African governments of the essential revenue needed to fund social protection frameworks, despite prior commitments to international labor standards.

​To safeguard whistleblowers, Odigie urged the creation of safer, more robust reporting mechanisms that guarantee absolute institutional protection for workers who expose corruption. Furthermore, the labor union advocated for enhanced legislative powers for the EFCC, proposing amendments to its enabling Act to fortify its investigative and prosecutorial muscle against high-ranking offenders regardless of their political or social status.

​EFCC Welcomes Revived Partnership

​Responding on behalf of EFCC Executive Chairman Mr. Ola Olukoyede, the Director of Public Affairs, Commander Wilson Uwujaren, stated that the commission has transitioned past mere lamentations over illicit financial flows into active enforcement, yielding tangible recoveries, arrests, and investigations.

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​Abolishing the notion that the agency can achieve victory in isolation, Uwujaren described the NLC as the premier civil society organization in the country.

​”The Commission welcomes collaboration from every organisation, civil society, faith-based organisations… And the NLC, as far as I am concerned, is the lead organisation when it comes to civil society activities,” Uwujaren noted.

​He challenged the labor leadership to help rekindle public enthusiasm for the commission’s whistleblowing framework—introduced around 2016—which he noted has suffered decline due to waning civil society engagement. Emphasizing that ordinary workers suffer the brunt of systemic corruption, Uwujaren urged the NLC to spearhead sensitization campaigns illuminating how graft directly degrades citizen livelihoods.

​Both institutions committed to maintaining regular channels of engagement, with the labor congress promising broader grassroots mobilization of Nigerian workers to back the anti-corruption drive.