The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has disclosed that the Federal Government has approved an additional N50 billion from recovered proceeds of crime to fund the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), as the anti-graft agency seeks to convert asset recoveries into long-term investments in education and crime prevention.
Ola Olukoyede, chairman of the EFCC, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja while presenting the commission’s three-year stewardship report, saying the latest allocation was part of government policy of deploying finally forfeited proceeds of crime to social investment programmes.
The EFCC boss said the latest N50 billion allocation to NELFUND was approved in 2026, alongside another N50 billion for the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CreditCorp), bringing the additional funding approved this year from EFCC recoveries to N100 billion.
He said the process of releasing the funds was already underway and that NELFUND and CreditCorp should receive the money within days if the disbursement had not already been completed.
This is in addition to the Federal Government’s earlier directive in August 2024 for $50 billion each to be allocated to NELFUND and CreditCorp from proceeds of crime recovered by the EFCC.
Olukoyede said the intervention represented a significant shift in the use of recovered assets, with the government moving beyond simply recovering money from criminal enterprises to converting such proceeds into investments capable of delivering measurable social and economic benefits.
According to him, NELFUND has already supported about 1.6 million students, an intervention he said could have implications beyond access to tertiary education.
Olukoyede linked the decision to support NELFUND directly to the EFCC’s experience investigating cybercrime among young Nigerians.
He recounted an encounter with a university dropout who was under investigation for cybercrime and who demonstrated to him how he could gain unauthorised access to a bank account within minutes.
The young man, according to Olukoyede, told him that his parents had lost their jobs and that he was engaging in cybercrime because he did not want to abandon his education.
The experience, the EFCC chairman said, prompted him to consider whether providing financial support to students could help address some of the socio-economic pressures contributing to youth involvement in cybercrime.
He subsequently invited the managing director of NELFUND and raised the issue with President Bola Tinubu, who directed that the proposal be taken to the Federal Executive Council.
The resulting approval, he said, has enabled NELFUND to provide funding to about 1.6 million students.
Olukoyede argued that the intervention should therefore not be viewed merely as an education policy but also as a preventive measure against financial crime.
“Government has potentially taken effectively about 1.6 million people who have the potential to commit financial crime out of my pocket,” he said.
He maintained that young Nigerians with skills and ambition were less likely to turn to cybercrime when they had legitimate opportunities to remain in school and improve their prospects.
The EFCC chairman said the intervention demonstrated the importance of addressing the conditions that could make economic crime attractive, rather than relying exclusively on arrests and prosecutions after crimes had been committed.
The commission, however, plans to place the NELFUND intervention under a stronger fraud-monitoring framework.
Olukoyede disclosed that the EFCC was developing a fraud-risk assessment platform for NELFUND to monitor the processes through which the recovered funds are appropriated and distributed.
He said the system would extend to institutions involved in transmitting the funds to ensure that the recovered proceeds were not diverted or mismanaged.
“It is one thing for you to release money to them. It is another thing for that money to be appropriated, to be channelled,” he said.
According to him, the EFCC wants to ensure that every institution involved in the process operates within prescribed controls.
The move is consistent with the commission’s broader shift towards prevention, with Olukoyede saying the EFCC had traditionally focused heavily on enforcement after money had already been stolen.
He said the commission established its Fraud Risk Assessment and Control Department to enable it to examine government processes and identify vulnerabilities before public funds were diverted.
Olukoyede defended the legality of deploying recovered proceeds to NELFUND and other government programmes, saying the practice was backed by provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act.
He said the EFCC had consulted relevant government institutions, including the Budget Office, Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Attorney-General, before supporting the arrangement.
According to him, the key requirement is that the programme being funded must have been appropriated in the national budget.
“Whatever projects in Nigeria that will affect the social life of the people, that has been appropriated in the budget, wherever the money comes from, the Federal Government has the right to apply whatever money to those projects,” he said.
He added that the Federal Executive Council had also resolved that proceeds of crime finally forfeited to the government should be deployed to social investments, including education and consumer credit.
“There is no point keeping money in the treasury where people are suffering, where students can’t pay their tuition,” he said.
The policy, therefore, seeks to transform the outcome of anti-corruption enforcement into direct public benefits.
Olukoyede said another N50 billion allocation from recovered proceeds of crime had been approved for CreditCorp in 2026.
He said the EFCC had pushed for the funds to be made available to Nigerians at significantly lower interest rates, particularly middle- and low-income earners and civil servants.
According to him, conventional financing rates of 15 or 16 percent were too high for the category of Nigerians targeted by the programme.
He said CreditCorp had subsequently agreed that the additional N50 billion would be offered at single-digit interest rates, potentially between five and six percent.
The loans, he said, could be repaid over 10 to 15 years, making it possible for beneficiaries to finance major household needs, including housing.
Olukoyede said the objective was to strengthen Nigeria’s consumer credit system and give workers legitimate access to financing for essential needs.
He argued that a functional credit system could also reduce incentives for financial crime by allowing Nigerians to meet legitimate needs without resorting to illicit means.
“If there is a consumer credit system, if you had worked for 10, 15 years, you will be able to have what you can conveniently and comfortably service over the period of your service,” he said.
The EFCC said the conversion of recovered assets into public institutions was already producing tangible results.
Olukoyede cited the conversion of a recovered property formerly known as Nock University into the Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia, in Kaduna State.
He said 1,109 students matriculated at the institution in December 2025, providing tertiary education opportunities for students who might otherwise have been unable to afford university education.
He said the institution would also generate economic benefits for surrounding communities in Southern Kaduna.
According to him, another high-value private university had recently been finally forfeited to the Federal Government, adding that such recoveries demonstrated how assets linked to criminal proceeds could be transformed into productive national infrastructure.
Beyond NELFUND and social investment, Olukoyede said the EFCC recovered N1.233 trillion between October 2023 and July 2026.
The commission also recorded recoveries of $684.48 million during the 34-month period, spanning 16 currencies.
He said the recoveries were achieved alongside 10,872 convictions secured from 14,476 cases filed during the period.
The EFCC chairman said the commission also recorded approximately N257.2 billion in recoveries for federal ministries, departments and agencies.
He described the figures as evidence that anti-corruption enforcement could strengthen government revenue without imposing new taxes.
“This is fiscal value recovered through enforcement of existing obligations, not through the imposition of new taxes,” he said.
The commission also secured the forfeiture of 10,053 tangible assets through interim and final court orders between October 2023 and July 2026.
Olukoyede said the assets comprised 8,198 electronic items, 1,177 real estate properties, 370 automobiles and 251 plots of land.
Other forfeited assets included schools, factories, hotels, shops, oil rigs, machinery and aircraft.
He added that 102 tonnes of solid minerals had also been forfeited.
According to him, proceeds from the disposal of assets covered by final forfeiture orders had so far amounted to $12.07 billion and were paid to the Federal Government.
The EFCC chairman said the figures showed that the commission’s mandate was no longer limited to arrests and prosecutions but increasingly focused on ensuring that recovered value was returned to the Nigerian economy.
Olukoyede said the commission’s enforcement activities had also contributed to strengthening Nigeria’s financial system and addressing vulnerabilities to money laundering and terrorist financing.
He cited the commission’s work on money laundering, asset freezing and confiscation, virtual assets and other high-risk sectors.
He said Nigeria’s removal from the Financial Action Task Force’s increased-monitoring list, commonly known as the grey list, in October 2025 was a national achievement to which EFCC investigations and prosecutions contributed.
According to him, more than 90 percent of the money-laundering cases that contributed to Nigeria’s removal from the grey list were investigated and prosecuted by the EFCC.
In the foreign exchange market, Olukoyede said the commission recorded 234 cases and 73 convictions in the last three years involving unlicensed bureau de change operators.
He said the enforcement was aimed at supporting a more formal and transparent retail foreign exchange market and closing channels vulnerable to illicit finance, speculation and round-tripping.
EFCC dismisses over 40 staff for corruption, prosecutes five
Olukoyede also disclosed that more than 40 EFCC staff members had been dismissed for corruption and financial malpractice during his tenure.
He said more than five of those dismissed had also been prosecuted, while case files had been prepared for the prosecution of others.
He said the decision reflected his position that EFCC officials must meet the same standards of integrity the commission demands from members of the public.
The commission, he said, had renamed its internal affairs department the Department of Ethics and Integrity as part of efforts to strengthen internal accountability.
It also introduced policies covering gifts and hospitality and required staff to declare certain gifts and assets above prescribed thresholds.
The EFCC is also preparing to commission a Cybercrime Rapid Response Centre by the end of September.
Olukoyede said the centre would operate 24 hours a day and be linked to financial institutions to enable the commission to respond quickly when victims report unauthorised transactions.
He said the rapid response mechanism was necessary because cybercriminals often operate at night, meaning victims may only discover unauthorised withdrawals after funds have already been moved.
He said the new centre would seek to intercept suspicious transactions quickly and improve the commission’s response to cybercrime and advance-fee fraud.
On the continuing debate over the management of forfeited assets, Olukoyede opposed proposals to establish a single agency to manage all assets recovered by law enforcement agencies.
He argued that Nigeria has more than 20 statutory agencies that recover assets and that the scale and nature of those assets made centralised management impractical.
He cited previous attempts in other jurisdictions and Nigeria’s experience with the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), arguing that the country should instead require each agency to account for the assets it recovers.
Olukoyede said the Proceeds of Crime Act had already established a framework under which agencies could recover and manage assets while being held accountable for what they recovered and how those assets were handled.
He urged the media and the public to demand greater transparency from all agencies involved in asset recovery.
He pledged that the EFCC would continue to publish its records and annual reports and promised that recovered assets would not be mismanaged under his tenure.
For the EFCC chairman, the emerging model is clear: the ultimate measure of anti-corruption enforcement should not simply be the volume of money recovered, but how effectively those resources are returned to productive use.
NELFUND, he argued, offers one of the clearest examples of that philosophy, turning proceeds recovered from financial crimes into education financing for millions of Nigerian students, while simultaneously strengthening the country’s long-term fight against economic crime.
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