During the 38th Anti-Corruption Situation Room in Abuja, EFCC chairman Olanipekun Olukoyede shared that he rejected offers totaling N500m from government officials during his mother’s funeral in 2019.
The gifts, including cheques and drafts, came from ministers, directors, MDAs, and other high-ranking officials.
Olukoyede, who was serving as the Secretary of the commission at the time, recalled how his gate man presented the checks to him at his family home in Ekiti State before the burial. After reviewing them, he made the decision to return the gifts.
The EFCC chairman narrated, “I lost my mother in the year 2019 (in Ekiti State). We went for the funeral. I was the secretary of the EFCC then. People came. So I went to my place a day before the funeral service.
“By the time I got to my small compound, which I built several years ago before I joined the EFCC, I saw about 17 cows in my compound, including pregnant ones.
“When I got home, my gate man presented a box to me and inside it, I saw so many cheques and drafts from ministers, permanent secretaries, directors, DGs of agencies, etc.
“And so, I went in and showed it to my wife. She said, ‘Praise God’. I said, ‘Praise God for what?’ By the time we put all the cheques together, it counted close to N500m.
“I did the burial in September 2019. By July 2020, I was under investigation. Now, assuming all those cheques were paid into my account as traditional gifts and some of the MDAs that we were investigating in the EFCC, some of their directors and their DGs and their ministers sent cheques to me.
“Ordinarily, I mean for burial, some gave me one million, N20m and all of that. Even though that would not have influenced my decision if I was in a position to determine what would happen to their investigations, how would I have explained before a panel that they saw cheques paid into my account?”