The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced a financial incentive for whistleblowers who provide credible information that leads to the recovery of funds and properties allegedly taken abroad as proceeds of corruption.
EFCC Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, disclosed that whistleblowers could receive between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of recovered assets, depending on the circumstances of the recovery.
Olukoyede made the disclosure while speaking at the 43rd International Symposium on Economic Crime in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where he urged individuals with credible information about Nigerian assets suspected to have been acquired through corruption to come forward.
According to him, successful whistleblowers would be rewarded after the recovery of the assets.
“That is an incentive we have put in place to encourage people to come forward to give information about stolen assets,” Olukoyede said.
He added that the reward could potentially make some whistleblowers millionaires, depending on the value of assets recovered based on the information they provide.
“You never know if you give any information here, some of you may leave this place, multi-millionaire in your lifetime,” he told participants.
The EFCC chairman said the initiative was aimed at strengthening the commission’s intelligence-gathering efforts and improving its ability to trace and recover assets allegedly moved out of Nigeria through illicit means.
Olukoyede also disclosed that the EFCC had secured the forfeiture of more than $500 million in cash and assets to the Federal Government during his first three years in office.
He attributed the recoveries to the professionalism of EFCC investigators, judicial support and access to credible intelligence.
The EFCC chairman further highlighted Nigeria’s non-conviction-based asset forfeiture framework, which allows authorities to pursue the forfeiture of suspected proceeds of crime without necessarily waiting for a criminal conviction.
According to Olukoyede, the system is comparable to mechanisms used in countries such as Australia and Canada and has enabled authorities to pursue the forfeiture of several high-value assets, including an aircraft, a university, estates and houses allegedly acquired with proceeds of crime.
He cited the recovery of 752 housing units allegedly linked to former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele, as one example of the commission’s asset recovery efforts.
Olukoyede also spoke about an investigation involving former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN).
He said investigators had traced 57 properties to Malami and had secured the forfeiture of 48 of them.
“Sometimes last year, I opened investigations upon reasonable suspicion of criminal abuse of office by the immediate past Attorney-General of Nigeria,” Olukoyede said.
The EFCC chairman’s latest disclosure is expected to encourage individuals with information about suspected illicit assets linked to Nigeria to assist the commission in tracing and recovering such properties.