The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, has called for comprehensive reforms across Africa as a means of reducing investment risks and boosting foreign direct investment on the continent.
Olukoyede made the remarks on Friday at the EBII Group African Leaders and Partners Forum in Washington DC, United States.
His comments were contained in a statement issued on Saturday by EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale.
According to him, Africa must embrace “broad-based and radical reforms” to become more attractive to global investors.
“De-risking Africa requires us to pay attention to reforms to improve the ease of doing business, respect for the rule of law and human capital development.
“Success in this regard requires strong institutions in view of the challenges that already exist in the agricultural, renewable energy and solid minerals sectors,” he added.
The EFCC chairman joined other world leaders at the forum to discuss investment in strategic African sectors, including agriculture, energy transition and critical minerals.
He noted that despite its wealth of natural resources and young, tech-savvy population, Africa requires integrated reforms to unlock its full potential.
Olukoyede showcased Nigeria’s anti-graft agency as an example of institutional reform, highlighting its achievements in investigating financial crimes, prosecuting offenders and recovering stolen assets.
He said the commission, in its 22 years of existence, had secured more than 13,000 convictions, including 4,111 in 2024 alone.
“There can be no greater incentive to investors than assurance of due process and rule of law. From a background of zero convictions for financial and economic crimes, we have achieved over 13,000 convictions in 22 years of operation,” he said.
He added that the EFCC provides advisory services to foreign investors and regularly issues alerts on fraudulent investment schemes, such as the 58 Ponzi operations exposed by the Commission in March 2025.
Olukoyede also pointed to reforms initiated under his leadership, such as the Department of Fraud Risk Assessment and Control, created in 2023 to deploy risk-based approaches to corruption prevention in ministries, departments and agencies.
He said the department had tracked disbursement and utilisation of public funds, including the evaluation of a $50 million contract under the Pi-CNG project, which delivered 95 per cent of its buses and conversion kits.
Other milestones cited include the arrest of 792 suspected cybercriminals in Lagos in a single operation, the forfeiture of 753 properties in Abuja linked to fraud, and high-profile investigations into digital asset and cryptocurrency scams, including the Crypto Bridge Exchange case in which investors lost more than half a billion dollars.
“Some of the masterminds are being prosecuted before Nigerian courts,” he disclosed, adding that the EFCC had earlier investigated Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, exposing the scale of resources controlled outside Nigeria’s financial system.
