On Monday in Abuja, the EFCC Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, told Nigerians a story about himself and asked them to applaud.The event began with a terse invitation in which EFCC described itself to journalists as a “security and an intelligence agency.”But that is a gross overreach. EFCC is no such animal. It is an accountability body empowered by law to combat a specific kind of crime.From Mr Olukoyede, the numbers were, as always, staggering. N1.233 trillion recovered. 10,872 convictions.A conviction-to-filing ratio he pegged at 75.1 per cent, a statistic he offered with the confident cadence of a man reading from an annual report.But it was not an annual report. It was a press statement dressed in the clothing of accountability. That is the first thing worth saying plainly: what Olukoyede delivered was not the report that Section 37 of the EFCC Act obligates his commission to deliver to the National Assembly by September 30 each year, complete with audited accounts.This was a public relations offensive: his choice of format, his choice of figures, his choice of emphasis, answerable to no scrutiny but his own.In three weeks, however, the ink comes due on that statutory obligation again, but no EFCC chairman has filed the comprehensive, audited report the law requires since Nuhu Ribadu did in 2006: the year he stood before the Senate and named names.I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. The event began with a terse invitation in which EFCC described itself to journalists as a “security and an intelligence agency.”But that is a gross overreach. EFCC is no such animal. It is an accountability body empowered by law to combat a specific kind of crime.From Mr Olukoyede, the numbers were, as always, staggering. N1.233 trillion recovered. 10,872 convictions.A conviction-to-filing ratio he pegged at 75.1 per cent, a statistic he offered with the confident cadence of a man reading from an annual report.But it was not an annual report. It was a press statement dressed in the clothing of accountability. That is the first thing worth saying plainly: what Olukoyede delivered was not the report that Section 37 of the EFCC Act obligates his commission to deliver to the National Assembly by September 30 each year, complete with audited accounts.This was a public relations offensive: his choice of format, his choice of figures, his choice of emphasis, answerable to no scrutiny but his own.In three weeks, however, the ink comes due on that statutory obligation again, but no EFCC chairman has filed the comprehensive, audited report the law requires since Nuhu Ribadu did in 2006: the year he stood before the Senate and named names.I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. But that is a gross overreach. EFCC is no such animal. It is an accountability body empowered by law to combat a specific kind of crime.From Mr Olukoyede, the numbers were, as always, staggering. N1.233 trillion recovered. 10,872 convictions.A conviction-to-filing ratio he pegged at 75.1 per cent, a statistic he offered with the confident cadence of a man reading from an annual report.But it was not an annual report. It was a press statement dressed in the clothing of accountability. That is the first thing worth saying plainly: what Olukoyede delivered was not the report that Section 37 of the EFCC Act obligates his commission to deliver to the National Assembly by September 30 each year, complete with audited accounts.This was a public relations offensive: his choice of format, his choice of figures, his choice of emphasis, answerable to no scrutiny but his own.In three weeks, however, the ink comes due on that statutory obligation again, but no EFCC chairman has filed the comprehensive, audited report the law requires since Nuhu Ribadu did in 2006: the year he stood before the Senate and named names.I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. From Mr Olukoyede, the numbers were, as always, staggering. N1.233 trillion recovered. 10,872 convictions.A conviction-to-filing ratio he pegged at 75.1 per cent, a statistic he offered with the confident cadence of a man reading from an annual report.But it was not an annual report. It was a press statement dressed in the clothing of accountability. That is the first thing worth saying plainly: what Olukoyede delivered was not the report that Section 37 of the EFCC Act obligates his commission to deliver to the National Assembly by September 30 each year, complete with audited accounts.This was a public relations offensive: his choice of format, his choice of figures, his choice of emphasis, answerable to no scrutiny but his own.In three weeks, however, the ink comes due on that statutory obligation again, but no EFCC chairman has filed the comprehensive, audited report the law requires since Nuhu Ribadu did in 2006: the year he stood before the Senate and named names.I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. A conviction-to-filing ratio he pegged at 75.1 per cent, a statistic he offered with the confident cadence of a man reading from an annual report.But it was not an annual report. It was a press statement dressed in the clothing of accountability. That is the first thing worth saying plainly: what Olukoyede delivered was not the report that Section 37 of the EFCC Act obligates his commission to deliver to the National Assembly by September 30 each year, complete with audited accounts.This was a public relations offensive: his choice of format, his choice of figures, his choice of emphasis, answerable to no scrutiny but his own.In three weeks, however, the ink comes due on that statutory obligation again, but no EFCC chairman has filed the comprehensive, audited report the law requires since Nuhu Ribadu did in 2006: the year he stood before the Senate and named names.I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. But it was not an annual report. It was a press statement dressed in the clothing of accountability. That is the first thing worth saying plainly: what Olukoyede delivered was not the report that Section 37 of the EFCC Act obligates his commission to deliver to the National Assembly by September 30 each year, complete with audited accounts.This was a public relations offensive: his choice of format, his choice of figures, his choice of emphasis, answerable to no scrutiny but his own.In three weeks, however, the ink comes due on that statutory obligation again, but no EFCC chairman has filed the comprehensive, audited report the law requires since Nuhu Ribadu did in 2006: the year he stood before the Senate and named names.I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. This was a public relations offensive: his choice of format, his choice of figures, his choice of emphasis, answerable to no scrutiny but his own.In three weeks, however, the ink comes due on that statutory obligation again, but no EFCC chairman has filed the comprehensive, audited report the law requires since Nuhu Ribadu did in 2006: the year he stood before the Senate and named names.I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. In three weeks, however, the ink comes due on that statutory obligation again, but no EFCC chairman has filed the comprehensive, audited report the law requires since Nuhu Ribadu did in 2006: the year he stood before the Senate and named names.I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. I have documented this journey since then, beginning in October 2007 with“Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s Most Powerful Woman.”19 years of silence by a body which proclaims accountability but refuses to practise it.The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. The second thing worth saying is what those 34 months of “high-profile” enforcement have actually produced when placed under a lamp rather than a podium light.Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. Olukoyede said, correctly, that his commission’s portfolio spans former governors, ministers and other public office holders.He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. He named, as his landmark triumphs, three convictions: Saleh Mamman, Robert Orya, Chukwunyere Nwabuoku. Worthy convictions, certainly, but observe what they are not: None is a sitting official. None is a governor. All three are men who had already lost the shelter of office by the time the law caught up with them, and even then, it took years.Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. Now look at what remains merely “before the courts,” the commission’s favourite euphemism for cases that may never reach a verdict. Consider:·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. ·Gabriel Suswam, charged over the Benue Cement shares more than a decade ago, is still adopting written addresses in 2026.·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. ·Sambo Dasuki‘s arms-procurement charges predate Mr Olukoyede’s chairmanship by eight years and remain unresolved.·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. ·Sule Lamido‘s trial, over allegations from his 2007–2015 tenure, has been stalled so often by defence absences that “pending” has become a permanent address.·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. ·Yahaya Bellohas two parallel trials, neither near a verdict; one analysis in March found no witness had yet placed him personally at the transactions in question.·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. ·Sadiya Umar Farouqis simply gone, declared wanted, her warrant upheld, at large.·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. ·Ifeanyi Okowa, first arrested nearly two years ago, still merelystrolls aroundEFCC offices.Related NewsPlateau shuts schools over diphtheria outbreakWhy traders shouldn’t use detergent to wash fruits – NutritionistsSolar power reduces universities’ energy costs – FG· HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. · HEDA’sannual COMPENDIUMOF 100 HIGH PROFILE CORRUPTION CASES IN NIGERIA.This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. This is not a record of no office or title placing anyone beyond the law. It is a record of office and title providing exactly the delay, the legal armament, and the stamina required to outlast any prosecution not backed by conviction.At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. At his October 2023 confirmation, Olukoyede produced a specific, falsifiable pledge: hetold the Senatethat prosecution should not run beyond five years, from court of first instance to the Supreme Court. Three years into his stewardship, Suswam’s case has run 13 years, Dasuki’s 11, and Lamido’s a decade. None has moved appreciably closer to the five-year ceiling he proposed.And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. And then, the newer files opened on his own watch: Bello, Sirika, Farouq, are proceeding at a pace that will comfortably breach that five-year ceiling too, if they produce a verdict at all.Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. Consider, too, the newest instrument in the commission’s kit: civil forfeiture without conviction, deployed against former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami: 48 of 57 properties, worth some N213 billion.Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. Notice what the commission chose not to pursue alongside it: a criminal conviction requiring proof of Mr Malami’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, in open court, on record.Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. Forfeiture recovers money, but it does not establish guilt, and it spares the commission the far more significant work of convicting a powerful Nigerian. Recovery without reckoning is becoming the EFCC’s signature.This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. This should not surprise anyone who has read EFCC’s own numbers rather than merely applauded them. When the commission reported 3,785 convictions in 2022, more than nine in 10 were the small fry it likes to hide behind: low-level fraudsters processed through plea bargains and sentences measured in months.The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. The 10,872 convictions announced on Monday were again presented as an undifferentiated mass, with no breakdown of how many were governors, ministers, permanent secretaries or bank chiefs, and how many were the easy cases that pad a scoreboard. A commission genuinely focused on elite accountability would be eager to publish that breakdown.That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. That same confirmation hearing produced a line I have not forgotten: Olukoyede telling the Senate that the fight against corruption should begin from that hallowed chamber. Heillustrated with theEFCC’s own investigation of the man who laughed it off as Senate President. Today, Olukoyede does not even whisper that name:Godswill Akpabio.In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. In January, responding to critics, Olukoyede asked Nigerians to allow EFCC to breathe. An institution that cannot manage a single audited annual report to the legislature that created it, yet manages a slickly produced 19-page stewardship document distributed to friendly press, has not earned the presumption of good faith it is requesting.Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. Citizens must be able to assess the effectiveness of a major law enforcement agency consuming significant public resources, and the EFCC is consuming a lot.And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. And its2023-2026 spending scorecard, as recorded byGovSpend, demonstrates very curious behaviour. For instance, of 1,445 disclosed transactions (worth N72.77bn), less than 2 per cent appears to have been dedicated to the commission’s real functions of investigation, prosecution, informant funds, litigation, etc.Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. Among many eyebrow-raising elements, there are 111 exact N5,000,000 payments (totalling N555m), relating mostly to fuel and retreats. In that fuel sub-sector alone, the EFCC makes cash-based diesel payments to named individual staff: 82 of 93 fuel transactions worth N2.1bn, to be precise, not through contracted suppliers.In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. In these three years, 172 transactions worth over N1.3bn have gonedirectly to 56 named individuals, sometimes in the same sums dated the same day, mostly for fuel/diesel supply, cash advances and medical assistance.I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. I have not accused the EFCC of anything, simply that these are numbers and practices that normally raise audit flags. But the EFCC enjoys the hypocrisy of being able to demand transparency from others while operating behind a veil of secrecy regarding its own accountability.Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. Nonetheless, the EFCC’s audited annual report is due this month, but until that document becomes non-negotiable, theEFCC is complicit, and every trillion-naira figureboastto a room of journalists is a number without a witness.And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it. And that is exactly how you boost corruption, and Nigerians cannot applaud it.