The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has handed over 1,452 hostel items, recovered during a major 2024 anti cybercrime operation, to the Federal Ministry of Education, part of a deliberate policy of channelling proceeds of crime into critical social sectors.
EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede, presenting the items to Minister of Education Tunji Alausa in Abuja, said the recovered items, comprising 501 double step bunk beds, 939 mattresses and 12 wooden beds with mattresses, came out of Operation Eagle Flush, a component of the broader Operation Eco Forge, which he described as the single largest cybercrime operation ever conducted involving the education sector. About 792 suspects were arrested during that operation, including 193 foreign nationals, all of whom were investigated, prosecuted and convicted, with the foreign nationals repatriated after serving their sentences.
Olukoyede said the decision to direct recovered assets specifically toward education was deliberate, arguing that children and young people remain the greatest victims of corruption and financial crime and should therefore be first in line to benefit from any recovery, a principle he said President Tinubu embraced fully aware that investing in education secures the country’s future. He noted this is not the first such handover, recalling that a forfeited university facility was given to the ministry of education last year and now operates as the Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia, in Kaduna State, and cited the Student Loan Fund, partly financed by EFCC recoveries under the Proceeds of Crime Act, as another beneficiary, covering tuition and monthly stipends for students who could not otherwise afford school. He linked the intervention directly to crime prevention, explaining that many students turn to financial crime specifically because they cannot afford school fees despite genuinely wanting an education. Minister Alausa, receiving the items on behalf of the federal government, commended the EFCC’s recovery efforts and pledged the assets would be deployed where needed most, particularly unity schools nationwide, to improve learning conditions for students.
