By Premium Times
Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has dismissed 27 of its officers from service for fraud and other acts of misconduct.
In a statement, the agency said the purge followed the recommendation of the
EFCC’s staff disciplinary committee ratified by the chairperson of the commission, Ola Olukoyede.
However, the statement did not reveal the identities of the 27 affected officials and the cases against them, a repeat of a similar announcement by Olukoyede in November 2024 on the dismissal of two corrupt officials of the agency.
The agency only promised to investigate all allegations of fraud and misconduct levelled against its officials.
“Every modicum of allegation against any staff of the commission would always be investigated, including a trending $400,000 claim of a yet-to-be-identified supposed staff of the EFCC against a sectional head. The core values of the commission are sacrosanct and would always be held in optimal regard at all times,” the statement said.
In October last year, shortly after his appointment as the EFCC’s chairman, Olukoyede, who had served as the secretary of the agency and ex-chief of staff to the commission’s chair for a cumulative four years, asked staff members to declare their assets and prepare for investigations.
“We will declare our assets, and we are going to investigate it. We must live above board by setting the pace with good examples. As anti- corruption fighters, our hands must be clean, so we must declare our assets,” he said at the corporate headquarters of the commission in Abuja while addressing senior staff of the EFCC on 24 October.
The gesture came as an acknowledgement that there were corrupt officials in the agency, confirming public perceptions of involvement of many operatives in corrupt activities.
Meanwhile, the EFCC has faced criticism on different occasions over concealing vital details in cases when the public expected full disclosure.
The latest case was when the commission announced the recovery of a vast estate in Abuja measuring 150,500 square metres with 753 units of duplexes and other apartments but withheld the names.
