The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, has urged the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, to ensure that the funds approved by the Federal Government for disbursement as loans to students get directly to the intended beneficiaries, while strengthening measures to prevent diversion and other financial crimes.

Olukoyede gave the charge in Abuja on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, between the EFCC and NELFUND at the Corporate Headquarters of the Commission. The MoU is aimed at strengthening collaboration, preventing financial infractions and ensuring accountability in the management and disbursement of proceeds of crime allocated for educational support.

He described NELFUND as one of the major legacy projects of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration and commended the management of NELFUND for the progress recorded in providing students with access to education financing. The EFCC Chairman said the Commission’s mandate extends beyond the recovery of proceeds of crime to ensuring that recovered funds are put to productive use for the benefit of Nigerians.

With the MoU, both the EFCC and NELFUND will now set up a joint team tagged the ‘Fraud Assessment and Control Unit’ to ensure that things are done in compliance with the set guidelines.

Olukoyede stressed that the partnership with NELFUND should also focus on prevention, rather than waiting until funds are stolen before taking action. He said the EFCC would work with NELFUND to examine its processes, identify vulnerabilities and strengthen internal controls to ensure that funds meant for students reach them as intended.

“There are certain things you might not have addressed your mind to, because that is what we do. We could give all your attention to it. We don’t have to necessarily wait for money to be stolen before we go into action. Why can’t we provide more prevention? Even if it doesn’t occur at the level of the organisation, across or along the chain, something could happen,” the Chairman stated.

According to him, the welfare of young people informed the EFCC’s interest in supporting NELFUND, particularly because a substantial proportion of those investigated for cybercrime are young people and, in some cases, students. “Whatever we recover from these proceeds of crime, why can’t we use it to also support them?” he asked, explaining that the idea of applying recovered proceeds to support students was driven by the need to address some of the vulnerabilities that could expose young people to economic crimes.

The EFCC Chairman further advised NELFUND to explore mechanisms for direct disbursement to beneficiaries, subject to appropriate verification by educational institutions. He noted that universities and other institutions could play a critical role in authenticating students’ identities and ensuring that only genuine beneficiaries access the funds. “Let it go directly to the human beings,” Olukoyede said, stressing that the Commission was particularly interested in ensuring that the benefits of recovered funds reached the people for whom they were intended.

He, therefore, urged NELFUND to access only funds legitimately due to it and ensure that such resources were applied promptly for their intended purpose.

The EFCC Chairman expressed confidence that the MoU would strengthen risk assessment, improve accountability and establish safeguards capable of protecting the programme beyond the tenure of the current leadership of both institutions.

Earlier, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyer, commended the EFCC for its support and its emphasis on preventing economic crimes before they occur. He said the EFCC’s preventive approach had helped NELFUND establish stronger standards of transparency and accountability in the management of its resources.

Sawyer disclosed that NELFUND had processed 1.6 million applications, with 960,000 loans approved, adding that the organisation had recently upgraded its systems and launched a new portal. According to him, NELFUND receives applications, processes approvals and makes disbursements electronically, with funds transferred through formal banking channels and without the use of cash.

He said payments to students are made directly into their bank accounts, using identifiers including the National Identification Number, NIN, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, registration details, matriculation numbers and Bank Verification Numbers, BVN, for verification.

Sawyer recalled his promise to ensure that all of the operations of his office “would be fully transparent; where every penny, every kobo that leaves the organisation has an electronic footprint. Not just for today, but for those who may come tomorrow to say, what did they do while they were there? We’ve been taken to task many times on various allegations, suspicions, uncertainty. Say, look, all the records are there. It’s all electronic. If there’s anything wrong, you’ll find it.”

He said the system was designed to eliminate unnecessary intermediaries and reduce opportunities for manipulation, noting that applicants should not need personal connections within NELFUND to access the scheme.

“We wanted to make sure that there are no gateways, no middlemen in between, down to the point where we don’t need anybody to approve you as top civil servant or top judge. We don’t want anybody in the middle of this process, and we made sure that anyone who applies for this loan does not need to know anybody at NELFUND. Of course, they interact with us if they have difficulties, but they don’t need to know us at all. The bulk of the money goes to the institutions,” he said.

Sawyer said the organisation was committed to creating systems that would remain effective beyond the tenure of individual officials, stressing the importance of checks and balances and multiple layers of oversight. “It’s not personal. We need to ensure that this country can run and run and run without it being all because it’s this person or that person,” he said.

Sawyer also expressed appreciation to the EFCC for its role in recovering funds used to support NELFUND’s mandate, noting the risks undertaken by EFCC personnel in the course of recovering proceeds of crime.

He said the MoU represented another step towards ensuring that recovered funds were not diverted after recovery but reached the beneficiaries for whom they were intended. The collaboration is expected to strengthen preventive controls, improve transparency and enhance accountability in the management of funds dedicated to supporting Nigerian students.