The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, said it had approved the commission’s plans to investigate more than 3,000 financial crime cases.

Olukoyede revealed this at the 20th-anniversary lecture of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda Resources Centre, held in Lagos on Saturday.

According to him, the approved 3,000 cases were part of the over 5,000 petitions received by the agency from different groups and Nigerians.

He explained that the agency had recovered over ₦60bn and $10m in less than four months since he assumed office, noting that the agency has innovated mechanisms to either stop or minimise the stealing of public funds and other financial and economic crimes.

The EFCC boss stressed that it takes collective responsibility from every Nigerian to move the country forward and end corruption, and reiterated his resolve to use the anti-corruption drive to stimulate the Nigerian economy.

He added, “When we set out to investigate. People see it as a fight between EFCC and the rest of us. It should not be so. How much will the EFCC do?

“How much will ICPC do with its staff strength? I have less than 4,800 staff. I am talking of an agency that is serving people who are over 150 million.

“All we have to do is investigate and present the facts before the court. I will not be the one to give judgement. That is where we have collective responsibility. When you see something, you say something

“The issue is we are working as if we are not working. Upon my assumption of office between then and now, I have received over 5,000 petitions. I am not talking of just the one we received, but the one that we have checked and discovered that there was substance in it. That is just for one agency, EFCC.

“As I am talking to you I have approved the investigation of over 3,000 cases in less than four months, but what is our capacity, how many staff do we have? What resources do I have access to?

“In less than four months, we secured convictions of 700 and recovered over 60 billion naira, over 10 million dollars.

“If I am able to recover over 60 billion naira in less than 100 days, you can imagine how much has been stolen.

“I can tell you that for the billion that has been recovered, trillion has been stolen.”

On his part, the Chairman of HEDA, Olanrewaju Suraju, noted that the anti-corruption fight had been challenging.

Suraju urged every Nigerian to contribute a quota from their respective spheres and domains.