USAID FUNDS UNDER PROBE AS EFCC, FBI TRACE ALLEGED DIVERSION ACROSS NIGERIA

Nigeria’s EFCC and the US FBI are joining forces to trace funds released for HIV and tuberculosis programmes after reviews uncovered alleged inflated budgets and other financial irregularities.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have opened a joint probe into the alleged diversion and mismanagement of funds released to organisations implementing US-supported health programmes in Nigeria.

The investigation follows the shutdown of some United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported programmes in 2025, which raised questions over funds already released to implementing organisations before the programmes were terminated.

An FBI delegation led by Assistant Law Enforcement Attaché Macus Maccain raised the issue during a meeting with Bawa Usman Kaltungo, Acting Zonal Director of the EFCC’s Lagos Zonal Directorate 2.

The probe will focus particularly on programmes supporting HIV and tuberculosis interventions, with investigators seeking to establish how funds were handled after the programmes were discontinued.

Jeremy Kennon, a Special Agent with the US Department of State’s Office of Inspector General, said reviews had uncovered concerns including inflated budgets in Kano State and other states, prompting closer scrutiny of the financial management of the programmes.

The concerns are not being treated as established criminal conduct at this stage. The EFCC is expected to trace the movement of the funds, identify their ultimate beneficiaries and determine whether they were used for their intended purposes or were mismanaged or diverted.

Kaltungo assured the US delegation that the EFCC would investigate the allegations across affected states and work with the FBI to follow the financial trail.

The case places renewed attention on grant governance, beneficiary verification, financial reporting and post-disbursement monitoring in donor-funded programmes. For organisations handling international development funds, the probe underscores the growing importance of maintaining a clear audit trail from disbursement to final beneficiary.

It also signals a deeper level of Nigeria-US financial-crime cooperation, with the FBI seeking a longer-term intelligence-sharing and operational relationship with the EFCC as investigators work to establish what happened to the funds after the programmes were terminated.