EFCC Dismisses Over 40 Staff, Prosecutes Others Over Corruption, Financial Malpractice — Olukoyede
The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, has disclosed that the anti-graft agency has dismissed more than 40 of its personnel for corruption and financial malpractice since he assumed office.
Olukoyede made the disclosure on Monday during a briefing on the activities and achievements of the commission under his leadership at its headquarters in Abuja.
According to him, more than five of the dismissed personnel are currently facing prosecution, while the EFCC is preparing case files for the prosecution of others.
He said the commission would not hesitate to prosecute its own officers whenever they were found to have engaged in corrupt practices, stressing that EFCC personnel must be held to the same standards they enforce on members of the public.
“In the past two and a half years or three years of my service, I’ve asked them to dismiss over 40 staff on account of corruption and financial malpractice. More than five of them are being prosecuted at the moment,” Olukoyede said.
The EFCC chairman questioned why officers accused of corruption should merely be dismissed when the commission routinely investigates and prosecutes members of the public for similar offences.
“Because if that is what people do in other agencies and I arrest them, I investigate them, I prosecute them, why must I just dismiss you if you do it within our own system and I’m not prosecuting you?” he said.
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Olukoyede added that some of the affected officers were already standing trial, while prosecution processes were being initiated against others.
“You can follow those cases in court; they are public knowledge,” he said.
As part of efforts to strengthen internal accountability, the EFCC chairman disclosed that the commission had renamed its former Department of Internal Affairs as the Department of Ethics and Integrity.
He explained that the change was designed to reinforce the commission’s internal accountability mechanisms and support what he described as an “internal cleansing” process.
Olukoyede also revealed that the commission had introduced a gift policy to promote transparency and accountability among its personnel.
Under the policy, EFCC officers would be required to declare gifts above a specified threshold, including gifts received from relatives abroad.
The commission would also establish categories of gifts that its personnel could legitimately accept, he said, adding that the measures were intended to ensure that officers could account for their sources of income, assets and standard of living.
“You must be sure that your hands are clean. You can’t be fighting corruption when your hands are soiled with corrupt practices,” Olukoyede said.
The measures, he added, formed part of broader efforts by the commission to strengthen integrity within its ranks and ensure that its personnel remained accountable while investigating financial crimes across the country.
