Tuesday July 01, 2025
By Idorenyin UMOREN, Uyo
The former Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, AbdulRasheed Bawa, CON, has described the country’s decades-long fuel subsidy programme as a compromised system riddled with entrenched fraud, systemic failure, and complicity from both private actors and public officials, including law enforcement.
In an interview with ARISE News on Monday, June 30, centered around his book, “The Shadow of Loot and Losses Uncovering Nigeria’s Fuel Subsidy Fraud,” documenting the EFCC’s investigations into subsidy fraud between 2006 and 2011, Bawa said his findings confirmed long-standing suspicions that the system was structurally rigged to enable massive corruption.
Bawa, who chaired the EFCC from 2021 to 2023, noted that the corruption was deeply entrenched and widespread, adding that everyone, from marketers to regulators and even security agencies, found a way to profit from the multi-trillion-naira scheme.
“Everybody was benefiting from the scale and the scam, Including law enforcement,” Bawa said.
“People can be compromised in such a way that they will look the other way around. It’s a general thing.”
The investigation into the subsidy programme, which spanned five years of fuel importation and disbursements, revealed staggering figures: Nigeria’s subsidy payments ballooned from ₦200 billion in 2006 to ₦2.1 trillion by 2011.
Bawa, who documented the revelations in a new book, said the initial idea to write came from witnessing firsthand how unprecedented and unchecked the fraud was.
“Even at that time at the EFCC, we saw that this was something that had never happened before,” he said.
“I took the pain to write it down.”
He pointed out that although not all subsidy payments were fraudulent, the sharp rise in disbursements reflected manipulation of the system by actors who took advantage of regulatory loopholes and political protection.
“You have to understand, irrespective of how fortified a system is, with human touch, there’s nothing that cannot be done,” he said.
Bawa acknowledged that while the EFCC successfully prosecuted and convicted several subsidy fraud suspects — including one as recently as 2025 — the federal government eventually opted for negotiated recoveries over prolonged prosecution.
Fuel Subsidy Was A Scam Benefiting Everyone, Including Law Enforcement, Ex-EFCC Chairman Bawa Reveals
