The recent news of an EFCC bust linked to the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library once again raises an uncomfortable question: why is the EFCC relentless in hunting so-called “internet fraudsters” but appears paralysed when it comes to the real vultures bleeding Nigeria dry?
From Abuja’s gilded neighborhoods to Dubai’s luxury condos, the evidence of high-level looting is not hidden. Former governors, ministers, senior bureaucrats, judges, and federal lawmakers own sprawling mansions, hotels, and prime land far beyond the reach of their official salaries. Billions in state allocations and constituency project funds vanish every year, yet EFCC action against these elites is timid, selective, or quietly abandoned.
The EFCC’s public image has been built largely on spectacular arrests of alleged “internet fraudsters”, young, mostly unemployed Nigerians accused of romance scams, phishing, and other cybercrimes. These cases are often easy to prosecute, highly visible, and make for good headlines. But the same intensity is rarely seen when it comes to high-level corruption by political elites, senior civil servants, and MDA executives who have siphoned billions from the national treasury.
The disparity is glaring. Abuja is filled with mansions, hotels, and office complexes whose ownership traces back to ex-governors, ministers, lawmakers, and senior bureaucrats. Many of these properties could never have been acquired through legitimate earnings. Yet, EFCC probes into such assets either stall, end in quiet plea bargains, or disappear entirely. Constituency project funds vanish with little to show, state allocations are looted, judges take bribes, and federal aides enrich themselves without consequence.
This imbalance creates a perception, and to many, the reality, that the EFCC is either unwilling or unable to touch the most powerful. Political connections, judicial loopholes, and the weaponization of anti-corruption agencies for partisan ends mean that the “big thieves” almost always get away, while the “small thieves” face the full weight of the law.
If the EFCC were truly serious about fighting corruption, the focus would begin at the top, in the ministries, departments, and agencies where the largest thefts occur. Cleaning out the political class and the entrenched bureaucratic mafia would send a stronger moral signal than parading another batch of under-30s in handcuffs for “Yahoo Yahoo.” Until the state confronts elite looting, tackles unemployment, and restores economic hope, the moral authority to prosecute petty or survival-level crimes will remain fatally undermined.
In reality, these so called internet fraudsters are fuelling parts of the economy. While morally uncomfortable for some, this reflects an economic reality. Many of these young people, cut off from opportunities and abandoned and completely betrayed by the state, are turning illicit earnings into foreign exchange inflows, building houses, starting small businesses, paying school fees for siblings, and sustaining entire families. This doesn’t justify the crime, but it does highlight the hypocrisy of a system that starves its youth of opportunities, then punishes them for finding, however illegally, ways to survive, while letting the real economic saboteurs walk free.
We remember how the Commission once opened cases against politically exposed persons, only to watch them die slow deaths in the courts, or the convicts secured early release or political rehabilitation. Some went from EFCC investigation lists to holding top federal positions without consequence. The political recycling of corruption suspects has become Nigeria’s most lucrative industry.
Contrast this with the EFCC’s high-energy raids on young Nigerians accused of “Yahoo Yahoo.” Drones, night-time busts, and media parades for suspects who, while guilty of cybercrime, are often the by-products of a broken economy. Many of these youths as mentioned earlier, are the breadwinners of their families, using illicit earnings to pay school fees, feed households, and pump foreign exchange into the economy. It is a moral paradox: the same state that abandoned them in unemployment and hopelessness now deploys maximum force to crush their survival hustle, while turning a blind eye to those who loot the collective patrimony in billions.
Let’s be clear, internet fraud is a crime, and no one should romanticise it. But in scale and consequence, it is dwarfed by the institutional looting in our MDAs and political offices. One MDA fraud scandal can swallow the combined haul of every Yahoo Boy arrested in a year. Constituency projects remain unexecuted despite full funding; procurement contracts are inflated 500%; billions in COVID-19 palliatives “disappear” into private accounts. These thefts directly kill, they rob hospitals of equipment, schools of teachers, roads of repairs, and entire communities of clean water.
When the EFCC focuses its public energy on the petty while avoiding the powerful, it sends a dangerous message: in Nigeria, the severity of punishment is inversely proportional to the scale of your theft. If you must steal, steal big, and join the right political camp.
It is time for the EFCC to reorient its mission. Begin at the top: the ministries, departments, and agencies where the largest haemorrhaging occurs. Go after ex-governors who left their states bankrupt yet now live like oil sheikhs. Audit lawmakers’ constituency projects and publish the findings. Investigate the asset declarations of ministers, judges, and presidential aides. Make the fight against corruption in Nigeria credible again by proving that no thief is too powerful to touch.
Until the state cleans its own house, its moral authority to prosecute the poor will remain a hollow farce. And until the EFCC has the courage to bite the hand that feeds it, Nigeria’s corruption war will remain exactly what it is today, a circus for the masses, while the real looters laugh in private.
Duruebube Uzii na Abosi
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