The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s dismissal of more than 40 of its staff for alleged corruption and financial misconduct is commendable. An anti-corruption agency cannot credibly prosecute corrupt Nigerians while tolerating misconduct within its own walls. The decision reinforces a simple principle: those entrusted with fighting corruption must first demonstrate integrity themselves.
But the latest achievement announced by the EFCC also presents an opportunity to ask a much bigger question: is Nigeria really attacking the roots of corruption, or merely dealing with its symptoms?
The EFCC says it recovered N1.23 trillion and secured thousands of convictions between October 2023 and July 2026. These figures are significant. Yet the effectiveness of an anti-graft war cannot be judged solely by the volume of convictions or recovered funds. It must also be measured by whether government institutions are being reformed to prevent corruption from occurring in the first place.
This is particularly important in the federal civil service, where allegations of poor management, duplicated responsibilities and questionable institutional structures have continued to raise concerns. The existence of agencies and departments whose functions appear to overlap, duplicate or lack clearly demonstrable public value deserves serious scrutiny.
The Federal Secretariat and the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation should not be exempt from this examination. Nigerians deserve to know exactly how many agencies, departments, boards and committees operate under these structures, what their mandates are, how many employees they have and what measurable value they provide to the country.
Where institutions have outlived their usefulness, exist largely on paper or duplicate the functions of other government bodies, they should be reviewed. Maintaining bureaucratic structures simply because they have existed for years is an expensive luxury Nigeria can no longer afford.
The problem becomes even more troubling when weak institutional management creates room for ghost workers and ghost positions. A government payroll should be one of the easiest areas to monitor in the digital age. Every legitimate employee should have a verifiable identity, appointment record, place of work, supervisor and clearly defined responsibilities.
If people who do not work for government can remain on payroll, the problem is not merely the dishonesty of the individuals involved. It is also evidence of institutional failure. Someone must have authorised the appointment, processed the payroll, approved salaries and failed to detect the anomaly.
That is why the fight against corruption must move beyond catching the beneficiary of an illicit payment to identifying everyone who enabled the system to function.
The same principle should apply to phantom agencies. If an institution has little or no meaningful activity but continues to receive public funding and maintain a payroll, Nigerians should ask who benefits from its continued existence. Such structures can become convenient channels for patronage, questionable appointments, inflated personnel costs and diversion of public resources.
This brings us back to the EFCC and its handling of politically exposed persons. Cases involving figures such as Betta Edu, Godwin Emefiele among others have attracted considerable public attention. The issue is not that allegations should automatically translate into convictions. Every accused person is entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence.
The concern, however, is whether the anti-corruption system is sufficiently effective in pursuing the powerful and whether investigations into high-profile cases produce clear outcomes within a reasonable period.
Nigerians should not have an anti-corruption system that is celebrated for catching small offenders while the structural weaknesses that facilitate the theft of enormous public resources remain untouched.
The EFCC cannot reform the entire civil service by itself. The responsibility extends to the Presidency, the Office of the SGF, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the National Assembly, the Auditor-General, the Office of the Accountant-General and other institutions responsible for personnel management, budgeting and financial controls.
Nigeria needs a comprehensive audit of federal agencies—not merely an exercise in reducing numbers, but a forensic examination of mandates, personnel, payrolls, budgets, outputs and overlapping responsibilities.
Every agency should be able to answer basic questions: Why does it exist? What does it do? How many people does it employ? How much does it cost the taxpayer? What has it achieved? And can another existing institution perform the same function?
Where the answers are unsatisfactory, government should act.
The same scrutiny should be applied to the federal payroll. Regular personnel audits, biometric verification, independent payroll reconciliation and stronger sanctions for officials who facilitate ghost workers should become routine rather than emergency measures.
Ultimately, Nigeria’s corruption problem is not simply a problem of dishonest individuals. It is a problem of weak systems, poor oversight, compromised processes and institutions that sometimes make it easier to steal than to account.
The EFCC’s cleansing of its own house is therefore welcome. But the commission and the Federal Government must go further. Nigerians need an anti-corruption strategy that attacks the ecosystem that produces corruption—from phantom agencies and ghost workers to procurement abuses, weak supervision and the selective prosecution of politically exposed persons.
The real victory will not come when the EFCC announces another impressive number of convictions. It will come when government systems become so transparent and accountable that creating a ghost worker, maintaining a phantom agency or diverting public money becomes increasingly difficult.
Nigeria does not merely need more people in prison for corruption. It needs fewer opportunities for corruption to occur in the first place.
