Olukoyede Offers Cash Rewards To Whistleblowers On Nigerian Assets Hidden Abroad
By Sunday Etuka
The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ola Olukoyede, has appealed to whistleblowers around the world to provide credible and actionable information on monetary and non-monetary assets stashed abroad by corrupt Nigerians.
Olukoyede made the appeal on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, while delivering a lecture at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom.
He said anyone with knowledge of where Nigerian assets are hidden overseas could come forward to assist the country in recovering them, adding that such cooperation would attract substantial financial rewards.
“I welcome all of you to the world of whistleblowing. If any one of you is privy to where Nigerian assets are stolen or taken to anywhere in the world, we have an incentive for you; between 2.5% and 5%, it’s going to go back to you upon recovery. That is an incentive we have put in place to encourage people to come forward to give information about stolen assets. You never tell if you give any information here, some of you may leave this place, multi-millionaire in your lifetime,” he said.
The EFCC boss, according to a statement by the Head of Media & Publicity, Dele Oyewale, who received rapturous applause from the audience, disclosed that in less than three years since assuming leadership of Nigeria’s foremost anti-graft agency, the Commission has recovered more than half a billion dollars for the Nigerian government.
“Within three years of my assumption of office, we’ve been able to forfeit both cash and assets worth over half a billion dollars to the government,” he said.
He attributed the successful recoveries to the resourcefulness and professionalism of EFCC investigators, a functional judiciary, and access to reliable intelligence.
Olukoyede also compared Nigeria’s non-conviction-based asset forfeiture approach to similar frameworks used in Australia and Canada, explaining that the model allows the Commission to pursue forfeiture of suspected proceeds of crime without needing to secure a prior criminal conviction.
“We have similar to what is obtainable in Australia and Canada that empowers us to apply the forfeiture to proceeds of what is suspected to be proceeds of crime,” he said.
Using this approach, he told the gathering that an aircraft, a university, various estates and houses suspected to be proceeds of crime had already been forfeited to the government.
He specifically cited the recovery of 752 housing units linked to a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, as well as investigations into a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, which led to the forfeiture of 48 out of 57 houses suspected to be proceeds of corrupt practices.
“Sometime last year, I opened investigations upon reasonable suspicion of criminal abuse of office by the immediate past attorney-general of Nigeria. We discovered that within eight years of his being in office, we were able to trace about 57 such properties to him. We’ve been able to forfeit about 48,” he said.
The event, now in its 43rd edition, is an annual gathering that brings together anti-corruption experts from across the globe. Olukoyede’s presentation was delivered on the third day of the week-long symposium.
