EFCC's N1.23 trillion is a 33-month total, not a half-year one, and its 1,370 convictions for early 2026 trail the 1,928 its own list records for the same months of 2024

On Friday, 2 October 2026, at the commissioning of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission's new zonal directorate in Awka, the EFCC's Executive Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, repeated two figures that were reported together the same day under the Vanguard headline "EFCC secures 1,370 convictions, recovers N1.23trn". That report said the commission secured 1,370 convictions in the first half of 2026 and recovered N1,233,612,040,411.11, $684,478,457.32, £373,905.78 and €9,343,803.66 "during the period". Vero Record read the EFCC's own releases. They do not put the N1.23 trillion in the first half of 2026. It is the naira total for Mr Olukoyede's whole tenure: the text of his 31 August briefing dates it from 1 October 2023 to 30 June 2026, which is 33 months. The 1,370 convictions are the only half-year figure. Set against the EFCC's own conviction lists, that half-year count is lower than the same months of 2024.

The commission's account of the Awka event, published on efcc.gov.ng on 2 October, quotes Mr Olukoyede: "Between October 2023 and July 2026, the Commission received 49, 673 petitions, investigated 39, 615 cases, filed 14, 476 cases in court and secured 10, 872 convictions. This gives a conviction-to-filing ratio of 75.1 percent. In the first half of 2026 alone, we recorded 1, 370 convictions from 1, 889 filings. The Commission also recorded recoveries of N1, 233, 612, 040, 411. 11..." The recovery sentence follows the half-year sentence without its own period, which leaves room for the reading in the headline. The EFCC's release of 31 August 2026, headed "EFCC Recovers N1.233Trillion in 34 Months of Olukoyede's Stewardship", is not ambiguous: it presents the same naira, dollar, pound and euro figures as the record for his time in office. The text of the briefing, as published in full by New Dawn, gives the dates: "Between 1 October 2023 and 30 June 2026, the Commission recorded recoveries of N1, 233,612,040,411.11". The EFCC's own release does not print those dates. Counted by month, 1 October 2023 to 30 June 2026 is 33 months, while the conviction and asset figures run to July 2026, or 34.

The figures inside the 31 August release are internally consistent. Direct recoveries for the Federal Government of N397.26 billion and indirect recoveries of N836.34 billion add to N1,233.60 billion, against the stated N1,233.61 billion, a rounding difference. Releases of N325.35 billion to individuals and companies and N335.97 billion to ministries, agencies and revenue services add to the N661.32 billion stated. Federal tax recoveries of N173.2 billion and N114.9 billion for state revenue services add to the N288.1 billion stated. And 10,872 convictions divided by 14,476 filings is 75.1 per cent. The percentage split is slightly off: N397.26 billion is 32.2 per cent of the naira total, not 33, and N836.34 billion is 67.8 per cent, not 67, though Mr Olukoyede's phrase "two out of every three naira" holds. The N1.23 trillion is a naira figure only. The dollars, pounds and euros are listed beside it and are not converted, so no exchange rate is involved and the naira total is not the value of everything recovered.

The EFCC's earlier releases allow the tenure total to be divided into periods. On 31 October 2024, marking his first year, the commission put naira recoveries at N248,750,049,365.52 and dollar recoveries at $105,423,190.39, with 3,455 convictions. On 23 October 2025, for October 2023 to September 2025, it gave N566,319,820,343.40, $411,566,192.32, £71,306.25 and €182,877.10, with 10,525 cases filed and 7,503 convictions. Subtracting each release from the next, the second year added N317,569,770,977.88, and the nine months from October 2025 to June 2026 added N667,292,220,067.71, $272,912,265.00, £302,599.53 and €9,160,926.56. On the EFCC's own figures, 54.1 per cent of the naira recovered in Mr Olukoyede's tenure was recorded in those last nine months. That is an average of about N74.14 billion a month, against N20.73 billion a month in the first year and N26.46 billion in the second. The euro total rose about fifty-fold. The 31 August release does not mention the change or explain it, and the 2025 release gave no split between direct and indirect recoveries, so the documents do not show whether the later total counts kinds of recovery the earlier ones did not.

The release is also specific about what "recovered" covers. Two thirds of the naira was recovered "on behalf of ministries, departments and agencies, state revenue services, companies, individuals and foreign victims", including tax collected through enforcement. Of the totals, N661.32 billion and US$492.37 million "were released to beneficiaries". That leaves N572.29 billion, or 46.4 per cent of the naira, and $192.11 million, or 28.1 per cent of the dollars, which the release does not describe as released and whose location it does not give. It does not say whether the N397.26 billion of direct recoveries has been paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The one sum it describes as paid to the Federal Government is about N12.07 billion, the proceeds of selling assets under final forfeiture orders. Separately, it records N50 billion each for the education loan fund and the consumer credit corporation in August 2024, and a further N50 billion each approved in 2026, without saying whether these sit inside the N661.32 billion. The categories also cannot be rebuilt into the totals: if the N288.1 billion of tax and N257.2 billion recorded for federal agencies are both part of the N836.34 billion of indirect recoveries, N291.04 billion remains for companies, individuals and foreign victims, less than the N325.35 billion released to individuals and companies. The release does not say how the categories overlap.

For property, the release says the commission "secured the forfeiture of 10,053 tangible assets under interim and final court orders between October 2023 and July 2026". An interim order is not a final forfeiture; the release does not say how many of the 10,053 are under final orders. The listed items are 8,198 electronic items, 1,177 real estate assets, 370 vehicles and 251 plots of land, which add to 9,996, leaving 57 for the schools, factories, hotels, shops, oil rigs, barges, machinery and aircraft also named. In October 2025 the EFCC had counted 1,502 non-monetary assets: "402 properties in 2023, 975 in 2024, and 125 so far in 2025". The two counts are not built the same way, and most of the later total is electronic items such as phones.

On convictions, the EFCC's own lists give a firmer test. The commission publishes yearly conviction records on efcc.gov.ng; those for 2020 to 2024 were uploaded on 28 February 2026, and Vero Record downloaded them. The 2024 list has 4,111 numbered entries, the same number the EFCC gave for 2024 in September 2025. The 2022 list has 3,785, matching the figure stated for that year. Sorting the 2024 list by date of conviction, 1,928 entries fall between January and June 2024; 65 more carry no readable date or a date outside 2024. Against that, the 1,370 convictions for January to June 2026 are 558 fewer, or 28.9 per cent lower. The same count gives 1,719 for the first half of 2022 and 1,128 for the first half of 2023. The half-year figure the EFCC presented as an achievement is therefore below its own record for the same months of 2022 and 2024, though above 2023. Taken as an annual rate, 2,740, it would be two thirds of the 2024 total.

On the earlier claims, the lists support the EFCC and in places exceed it. The commission said it secured 3,455 convictions between October 2023 and September 2024; the 2023 and 2024 lists hold 3,596 entries dated in that window. It said 3,175 between 29 May 2023 and 29 May 2024; the lists hold 3,390. No list has been published for 2025 or 2026, so neither the 10,872 nor the 1,370 can be checked entry by entry. The tenure figures can only be compared with each other. Between the October 2025 and August 2026 statements, convictions rose by 3,369 and filings by 3,951, a ratio of 85.3 per cent for October 2025 to July 2026, against 71.3 per cent for the first two years. If 1,370 of those convictions and 1,889 of those filings fell in January to June 2026, the remaining four months, October to December 2025 and July 2026, would hold 1,999 convictions from 2,062 filings. The documents do not show whether those were exceptionally busy months or whether the statements define their periods differently.

The lists also show what most convictions are. In Vero Record's grouping of the offence column of the 2024 list, 1,684 entries, or 41.0 per cent, are impersonation or personation offences and 987, or 24.0 per cent, are cybercrime, internet fraud or computer-related fraud: together 65.0 per cent. Money laundering accounts for 116 entries, or 2.8 per cent, and 263 entries name no offence. In 3,356 entries, or 81.6 per cent, the sentence mentions a fine, in most cases as an option to a prison term, and 3,346 of the 4,111 cases were filed in 2024, the year of conviction. This matches the EFCC's own statement that advance fee fraud and cybercrime were "nearly two-thirds of recorded offences" from 2024 to 2026. The lists only occasionally say whether a conviction followed a plea agreement, so the share of plea bargains cannot be measured from them.

Two other EFCC figures do not sit with the rest. In October 2025 the commission said it had received "over 19,000 petitions" and conducted 29,240 investigations since October 2023; in August 2026 it gave 49,673 petitions to July 2026, which would mean up to about 30,600 in the ten months after September 2025, against just over 19,000 in the 24 months before. And on 19 September 2025 Mr Olukoyede said the EFCC had "achieved over 13,000 convictions in 22 years", while three weeks later, on 9 October 2025, its head of media and publicity put the figure at "over 17,000". The commission's five published lists for 2020 to 2024 alone hold 13,766 entries, so the lower figure understates its own record.

Vero Record did not find a federal accounting record that sets out how much of the EFCC's recoveries has reached the Federation Account or the Consolidated Revenue Fund. No document from the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Accountant-General or the Auditor-General reconciling these sums was obtained for this report. In November 2024 Mr Olukoyede told the Senate committee on anti-corruption that the commission's annual report would be published on its website once the committee approved it. No annual report for 2024 or 2025 was found in the releases, magazines and files Vero Record checked on the EFCC's website.

Taken together, the EFCC's own records support the arithmetic inside its 31 August statement, the conviction totals it has published for 2022 and 2024, and its earlier one-year claims, which its lists exceed. They do not support reading N1.23 trillion as a half-year figure: it is a naira-only total for 33 months, more than half of it recorded after September 2025, about 46 per cent of it not described as released, and only N12.07 billion of it described as paid to the Federal Government. And the 1,370 convictions of the first half of 2026 are 28.9 per cent fewer than the 1,928 in the EFCC's own list for the first half of 2024. Nothing in these records suggests wrongdoing by anyone.

What this rests on

EFCC releases read on efcc.gov.ng through its public news feed (efcc.gov.ng/backend/news), saved as text: "Tinubu to EFCC: You Have Justified my Confidence in You" (2 October 2026, Awka); "EFCC Recovers N1.233Trillion in 34 Months of Olukoyede's Stewardship" (31 August 2026); "EFCC Recovers N566bn, $411m, 1,502 Properties in Two Years of Olukoyede's Leadership" (23 October 2025); "EFCC Charges Media, CSOs on Stronger Collaboration Against Corruption" (9 October 2025, the 17,000 figure); "Olukoyede Advocates Elaborate Reforms to Reduce Foreign Investment Risks in Africa" (19 September 2025, the 13,000 and 4,111 figures); "Olukoyede Gives One Year Scorecard" (31 October 2024); "EFCC Unveils Cybercrime Rapid Response Service" (22 October 2024, period October 2023 to September 2024); "EFCC Secures 3,175 Convictions, Recovers N156 Billion in One Year" (29 May 2024); "Senate Committee to EFCC" (11 November 2024). EFCC conviction records for 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 (PDF, efcc.gov.ng/backend/convictions), downloaded 3 October 2026 and parsed table by table: 976, 2,220, 3,785, 2,674 and 4,111 numbered entries, no gaps in the serial numbers. Text of the 31 August 2026 briefing as published in full by New Dawn (source of the dates 1 October 2023 to 30 June 2026). Arithmetic re-done: N397.26bn + N836.34bn = N1,233.60bn (stated N1,233.61bn); N397.26bn / N1,233.61bn = 32.2%, N836.34bn / N1,233.61bn = 67.8%; N325.35bn + N335.97bn = N661.32bn; N173.2bn + N114.9bn = N288.1bn; 10,872 / 14,476 = 75.1%; 1,370 / 1,889 = 72.5%; 7,503 / 10,525 = 71.3%. Periods: October 2023 to June 2026 = 3 + 12 + 12 + 6 = 33 months; to July 2026 = 34; October 2025 to June 2026 = 9 months. N566,319,820,343.40 minus N248,750,049,365.52 = N317,569,770,977.88; N1,233,612,040,411.11 minus N566,319,820,343.40 = N667,292,220,067.71, which is 54.1% of the total; $684,478,457.32 minus $411,566,192.32 = $272,912,265.00; £373,905.78 minus £71,306.25 = £302,599.53; €9,343,803.66 minus €182,877.10 = €9,160,926.56; monthly averages N248.75bn / 12 = N20.73bn, N317.57bn / 12 = N26.46bn, N667.29bn / 9 = N74.14bn. Not released: N1,233.61bn minus N661.32bn = N572.29bn (46.4%); $684.48m minus $492.37m = $192.11m (28.1%). N836.34bn minus N288.1bn minus N257.2bn = N291.04bn. Assets: 8,198 + 1,177 + 370 + 251 = 9,996 of 10,053; 402 + 975 + 125 = 1,502. Convictions: 2024 list by conviction date, Q1 869 + Q2 1,059 = 1,928 for January to June, Q3 864, Q4 1,254, total dated in 2024 4,046, plus 65 undated or outside 2024 = 4,111; first half 2022 839 + 880 = 1,719; first half 2023 422 + 706 = 1,128; 1,928 minus 1,370 = 558, 558 / 1,928 = 28.9%; 1,370 x 2 = 2,740. Window counts across the 2023 and 2024 lists: 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2024 = 3,596; 29 May 2023 to 29 May 2024 = 3,390. 10,872 minus 7,503 = 3,369; 14,476 minus 10,525 = 3,951; 3,369 / 3,951 = 85.3%; 3,369 minus 1,370 = 1,999; 3,951 minus 1,889 = 2,062. Offence grouping (2024): 1,684 + 987 = 2,671 = 65.0% of 4,111; 116 money laundering = 2.8%; 3,356 sentences mentioning a fine = 81.6%; 3,346 filed in 2024. Lists 2020 to 2024: 976 + 2,220 + 3,785 + 2,674 + 4,111 = 13,766. Petitions: 49,673 minus 19,000 = 30,673.

What this does not establish

Why recorded naira recoveries in October 2025 to June 2026 (N667.29 billion) exceeded those of the previous two years combined, and whether the later figures count categories, such as tax recovered for state revenue services, that the earlier releases did not. Where the N572.29 billion and $192.11 million not described as released are held, and whether the N397.26 billion of direct recoveries has been paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund or the Federation Account; no Finance Ministry, Accountant-General or Auditor-General record was obtained. How many of the 10,053 tangible assets are under final rather than interim orders. The EFCC's total for 2025 and the lists behind the 10,872 and 1,370 convictions, which are not published. How the period definitions in the October 2025 and August 2026 statements align, so the implied figures for October to December 2025 and July 2026 are uncertain. The share of convictions that followed plea agreements, which the lists rarely record. The offence grouping is Vero Record's reading of a free-text column and is approximate; the date counts exclude 65 entries in the 2024 list. The 1 October 2023 to 30 June 2026 dates come from the briefing text as published by New Dawn, not from an EFCC page. Vero Record did not review the social media posts that repeated the 2 October headline. Nothing in this report suggests wrongdoing by anyone.