By Nkechi Eze
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and the National Space Research and Development Agency, NASRDA on Thursday, January 15, 2026 formalised their resolve for inter-agency collaboration with a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU.
At the signing of the document at EFCC’s corporate headquarters in Jabi, Abuja, the Executive Chairman of EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede disclosed that the event was an attestation to the power of collaboration among government agencies, adding that such rapprochement would make accomplishment of mandate easier for government agencies.
He further observed that the MOU set out responsibilities and duties of each agency in the spirit of collaboration and working together. For its implementation, he disclosed that a special monitoring and implementation team would be raised.
To achieve this, Olukoyede stressed that the EFCC would put a team together that will monitor the operationalization of the MoU and also review the effectiveness of the platform from time to time. He also proposed that the perfect working of the synergy between the two Agencies will encourage other government ministries, departments and agencies to find a way of collaborating and working together in the spirit of achieving their mandates and ensuring that the country is taken to the next level.
On the specifics, Olukoyede disclosed that NASRDA will provide additional technology that will support EFCC’s investigative capability and asset tracking, while the Commission will deploy expertise that would leverage the Agency’s fraud risk assessment.
“We will support you in the area of your fraud risk assessment and you will support us in promoting our investigative capacity by helping us to ensure that where our eyes cannot get to, with the aid of your technology we will be able to get there. You are very aware that we are involved in the investigation and prosecution of illegal mining activities. With the aid of the technology you are going to support us with, we will be able to identify some of these areas.
He expressed optimism that the collaboration will offer the EFCC leverage on the platform that will help it to manage its assets in the most transparent and accountable manner. According to him, one of the hallmarks of the work of the EFCC is recovery of assets. The assets , he said , are scattered all over Nigeria. “Some, under interim forfeiture, some others under final forfeiture. In some of these places we may not have enough men that will move around and secure some of these assets. But with your support we will be able to deploy the use of geospatial technology and asset tagging devices to monitor”, he said.
In his remarks, Director General/Chief Executive Officer, NASRDA, Dr. Matthew Adepoju expressed delight at the opportunity of the inter-agency collaboration that would be enhanced by the MoU. He stressed that the MOU would serve as a watermark in the pursuit of justice and ensuring that both national and international organizations that are doing business in the space ecosystem comply and respect the laws of the land. “You cannot go anywhere in Europe or in the Continental America or the Far East and be doing business in the space ecosystem without the country making sure you are doing the right thing. This is for a fact that we know there are some satellite assets that are being used negatively in driving insecurity in the country,” he said.
Speaking further, he regretted that “Some of our natural resources are mapped to the satellite platform and they are supplying information to local bad guys. We know for a fact from some of the research work we’ve done that one of the drivers of insecurity in the country is illegal mining activities in our country. That’s why it’s expedient for us to make sure that everybody that operates from the three realms of the space sector, from the upstream, mainstream and downstream is regulated and complies with the law of the land. There is no better partner to go on this journey other than with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
He applauded the leadership of the EFCC for its strides, efficiency and tangible results and promised that NARSDA would make the best of its space regulation and spectrum management mandate through the MoU with the EFCC.
“We’ve identified areas of working together with EFCC, which is asset management, asset tracking and the tagging geotagging of the asset, both movable and immovable asset,” he said.
